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On the eve of the election, a poll on respondents’ political association predicts their satisfaction with the government’s response to the pandemic.
A woman wearing a mask walks past signs about COVID-19 precautions on a street in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, March 10, 2020. The sign reads “The New Coronavirus Prevention Action. “(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
South Korea has been praised for its reaction to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which combines widespread checks with state-of-the-art methods such as public “phone booths” that separate a medical professional from the patient and can provide effects within seven minutes. In addition, efforts have been made to triangulate public and personal knowledge to track patients’ movements and schedules. The U. S. , seeing South Korea’s success, even asked for equipment and added verification kits. Moon Jae-in’s administration built on South Korea’s previous reports in reaction to outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2015.
However, despite overwhelmingly positive reactions from foreign leaders and the possibility that the outbreak could influence next month’s parliamentary elections, little foreign attention has been paid to how the South Korean public perceives the government’s reaction to the coronavirus. While perceptions are equally positive, our insights suggest a more complex picture.
To gather public opinion, we surveyed 1,111 South Koreans from March 2 to 12 through an online survey conducted through Macromill Embrain, employing quota sampling by age, gender, and region based on census data. Although this was after the first wave of cases in South Korea, the new cases shown still ranged from six hundred on March 3 to 114 on March 12. We asked respondents to rate “I am happy with the South Korean government’s reaction to the 2020 coronavirus outbreak. “using a five-point scale, from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (5).
Overall, we see no consensus, with a majority (43. 83%) agreeing and more than a third (36%) disagreeing with the statement. Among those who do not belong to any party, we find particularly fewer (45. 63 consistent with 100 disagree as opposed to 27. 92 consistent with 100 agree). However, among the parties, we see a very transparent tendency to stick to ideological lines. Supporters of Minjoo or President Moon’s Democratic Party largely agreed with this statement, as did supporters of the Progressive Justice Party, while members of the centrist People’s Party and the conservative United Future Party were more critical.
Fearing that those trends were just a statistical anomaly, we also disaggregated reactions based on respondents’ self-identified position on an ideological spectrum. Here we see that self-identified progressives were 4 times more likely to agree than disagree with the government’s reaction (69. 78 and 15. 48 percent, respectively), while moderates were slightly distributed. Conservatives were also three times more likely to disagree with this statement.
Below, we break down the evaluations through partisanship and uncover stark differences. The highest support among supporters of Moon’s own party, the Minjoo Party (3. 93), and the lowest among smaller, more progressive supporters of Justice (3. 39). There was a decrease among supporters of the centrist People’s Party (2. 45) and the Conservative United Future Party (1. 79). A similar trend emerges if respondents are separated by political ideology; Progressives averaged a score of 3. 81 on the scale, compared with 2. 86 and 2. 28 for moderates and conservatives, respectively.
Regression research yielded similar results. Progressives and supporters of the Minjoo Party and the Justice Party were definitely satisfied with the government’s response, while conservatives and supporters of the United Future Party expressed this belief negatively. Meanwhile, gender, age, income, and schooling did not have a statistically significant influence. Keeping in mind that the location of primary outbreaks can influence beliefs, we also monitored Daegu and Gyeongbuk, which accounted for about 73% and 14% of cases as of March 20. However, neither of the two inclusions in the regression models reached statistical significance. Similarly, we controlled for survey day to capture short-term trends, but this inclusion is also not significant.
Despite widespread foreign praise for South Korea’s reaction to the coronavirus, our knowledge strongly recommends that there is no such consensus at the national level, where partisan and ideological lenses largely shape perceptions. This is perhaps not surprising, not only to the extent that strong partisanship and ideology are common in democracies, but also to the extent that those points tend to be prominent in the run-up to an election.
Parliamentary elections are scheduled for April 15. It is unclear to what extent opposition parties will focus on the Moon administration’s reaction to COVID-19 as a way to decrease the Minjoo party’s plurality of seats. Opposition leaders say Moon’s government did not act immediately enough and instead held a demonstration between the director and the cast of Parasite when the country already had 100 coronavirus cases. The online petitions show an ongoing divide, largely along partisan and ideological lines, from which Moon is not easy to oust. In addition, the effects of our survey recommend the difficulty of achieving broad consensus on a reaction to the crisis when partisan and ideological divisions run deep, especially during election periods. Fortunately for South Korea, previous reports with comparable outbreaks have provided physically powerful rules and allowed for immediate reactions. instead of resorting to partisan debates.
Timothy S. Rich is an associate professor of political science at Western Kentucky University and director of the International Public Opinion Lab (IPOL). His studies are on public opinion and electoral politics, with a special focus on East Asian democracies.
Isabel Eliassen is an undergraduate scholar at Western Kentucky University majoring in affairs, Chinese, and linguistics.
Andi Dahmer is a 2018 Harry S. Truman Scholar and a graduate of Western Kentucky University.
Madelynn Einhorn is a student at Western Kentucky University majoring in political science and economics.
Erin Woggon is a senior undergraduate scholar at Western Kentucky University and will graduate in May with a bachelor’s degree in German and International Affairs.
Kaitlyn Bison is a university academic who graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in International Affairs and Economics.
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South Korea has been praised for its reaction to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which combines widespread checks with state-of-the-art methods such as public “phone booths” that separate a medical professional from the patient and can provide effects within seven minutes. In addition, efforts have been made to triangulate public and personal knowledge to track patients’ movements and schedules. The U. S. , seeing South Korea’s success, even asked for equipment and added verification kits. Moon Jae-in’s administration built on South Korea’s previous reports in reaction to outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2015.
However, despite overwhelmingly positive reactions from foreign leaders and the possibility that the outbreak could influence next month’s parliamentary elections, little foreign attention has been paid to how the South Korean public perceives the government’s reaction to the coronavirus. While perceptions are equally positive, our insights suggest a more complex picture.
To gather public opinion, we surveyed 1,111 South Koreans from March 2 to 12 through an online survey conducted through Macromill Embrain, employing quota sampling by age, gender, and region based on census data. Although this follows the first wave of cases in South Korea, the new cases shown still ranged from six hundred on March 3 to 114 on March 12. We asked respondents to rate “I am happy with the South Korean government’s reaction to the 2020 coronavirus outbreak. “using a five-point scale, from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (5).
Overall, we see no consensus, with a majority (43. 83%) agreeing and more than a third (36%) disagreeing with the statement. Among those who do not belong to any party, we find particularly fewer (45. 63 consistent with 100 disagree as opposed to 27. 92 consistent with 100 agree). However, among the parties, we see a very transparent tendency to stick to ideological lines. Supporters of Minjoo or President Moon’s Democratic Party largely agreed with this statement, as did supporters of the Progressive Justice Party, while members of the centrist People’s Party and the conservative United Future Party were more critical.
Fearing that those trends were just a statistical anomaly, we also disaggregated reactions based on respondents’ self-identified position on an ideological spectrum. Here we see that self-identified progressives were 4 times more likely to agree than disagree with the government’s reaction (69. 78 and 15. 48 percent, respectively), while moderates were slightly distributed. Conservatives were also three times more likely to disagree with this statement.
Below, we break down the evaluations through partisanship and uncover stark differences. The highest support among supporters of Moon’s own party, the Minjoo Party (3. 93), and the lowest among smaller, more progressive supporters of Justice (3. 39). There was a decrease among supporters of the centrist People’s Party (2. 45) and the Conservative United Future Party (1. 79). A similar trend emerges if respondents are separated by political ideology; Progressives averaged a score of 3. 81 on the scale, compared with 2. 86 and 2. 28 for moderates and conservatives, respectively.
Regression research yielded similar results. Progressives and supporters of the Minjoo Party and the Justice Party were definitely satisfied with the government’s response, while conservatives and supporters of the United Future Party expressed this belief negatively. Meanwhile, gender, age, income, and schooling did not have a statistically significant influence. Keeping in mind that the location of primary outbreaks can influence beliefs, we also monitored Daegu and Gyeongbuk, which accounted for about 73% and 14% of cases as of March 20. However, neither of the two inclusions in the regression models reached statistical significance. Similarly, we controlled for survey day to capture short-term trends, but this inclusion is also not significant.
Despite widespread foreign praise for South Korea’s reaction to the coronavirus, our knowledge strongly recommends that there is no such consensus at the national level, where partisan and ideological lenses largely shape perceptions. This is perhaps not surprising, not only to the extent that strong partisanship and ideology are common in democracies, but also to the extent that those points tend to be prominent in the run-up to an election.
Parliamentary elections are scheduled for April 15. It is unclear to what extent opposition parties will focus on the Moon administration’s reaction to COVID-19 as a way to decrease the Minjoo party’s plurality of seats. Opposition leaders say Moon’s government did not act immediately enough and instead held a demonstration between the director and the cast of Parasite when the country already had 100 coronavirus cases. The online petitions show an ongoing divide, based largely on partisan and ideological lines, among which Moon’s impeachment is not easy. In addition, the effects of our survey recommend the difficulty of achieving a broad consensus on a reaction to the crisis when partisan and ideological divisions run deep, especially during election periods. Fortunately for South Korea, previous reports with comparable outbreaks have provided physically powerful rules and allowed for an immediate response. reactions rather than resorting to partisan debates.
Timothy S. Rich is an associate professor of political science at Western Kentucky University and director of the International Public Opinion Lab (IPOL). His studies are on public opinion and electoral politics, with a special focus on East Asian democracies.
Isabel Eliassen is an undergraduate scholar at Western Kentucky University majoring in affairs, Chinese, and linguistics.
Andi Dahmer is a 2018 Harry S. Truman Scholar and a graduate of Western Kentucky University.
Madelynn Einhorn is a student at Western Kentucky University majoring in political science and economics.
Erin Woggon is a senior undergraduate scholar at Western Kentucky University and will graduate in May with a bachelor’s degree in German and International Affairs.
Kaitlyn Bison is a university academic who graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in International Affairs and Economics.
South Korea has been praised for its reaction to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which combines widespread checks with state-of-the-art methods such as public “phone booths” that separate a medical professional from the patient and can provide effects within seven minutes. In addition, efforts have been made to triangulate public and personal knowledge to track patients’ movements and schedules. The U. S. , seeing South Korea’s success, even asked for equipment and added verification kits. Moon Jae-in’s administration built on South Korea’s previous reports in reaction to outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2015.
However, despite overwhelmingly positive reactions from foreign leaders and the possibility that the outbreak could influence next month’s parliamentary elections, little foreign attention has been paid to how the South Korean public perceives the government’s reaction to the coronavirus. While perceptions are equally positive, our insights suggest a more complex picture.