The rise of a third party in South Korea: the Unification National Party in the 1992 National Assembly election

Abstract

An interesting outcome of the 1992 South Korean National Assembly Election was the sudden rise of a new party based on a big business group. Setting up just two months before the legislative election, the Unification National Party (UNP) emerged as a strong third party from nowhere. The purpose of this article is to explore reasons behind the unexpected rise of its support. This article pays attention to the immobility of party choice under a plurality rule electoral system. Unlike existing research which has focused on the effects of personal voting and the constituency campaign, this article instead suggests that a newly established cleavage after democratization forced voters to make an unwilling choice between existing parties, ultimately helping the UNP's electoral breakthrough.