Abstract
This study examines whether political ideology switching by moderates mediates their charitable donations. Using the impeachment of Park Geun-hye, the former conservative president of South Korea, as a quasi-natural experiment, we find that the charitable donations of those who changed their political ideology from moderate to progressive after the corruption scandal increased by 16.8–17.9%. A battery of robustness tests supports the basic results. These findings imply that political scandals can affect moderates’ charitable behavior through the channel of political ideology switching.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Availability of Data and Materials
The datasets are available from the Korea Institute of Public Finance, https://www.kipf.re.kr/panel/.
Notes
This is based on raw data (2001–2019) from the Center for Philanthropy, the Beautiful Foundation.
According to the press, Ms. Choi even managed the president’s schedules.
The Candlelight Movement was a sustained series of protests that took place from November 2016 to March 2017. The protests were organized by a coalition of over 1,500 civic organizations motivated by the President Park scandal. The protests were largely peaceful and characterized by their use of social media [20].
As shown in Fig. 1, a larger proportion of moderates changed their position to progressivism after the political scandal, but others maintained their ideology.
Several factors may constitute the underlying mechanisms. According to Farmer et al. (2020), progressives who subscribe to a social justice viewpoint tend to help many people.
References
Bowler, S., & Karp, J. A. (2004). Politicians, scandals, and trust in government. Political Behavior, 26(3), 271–287.
Maier, J. (2011). The impact of political scandals on political support: An experimental test of two theories. International Political Science Review, 32(3), 283–302.
von Sikorski, C., Heiss, R., & Matthes, J. (2020). How political scandals affect the electorate. Tracing the eroding and spillover effects of scandals with a panel study. Political Psychology, 41(3), 549–568.
Keith, B. E., Magleby, D. B., Nelson, C. J., Orr, E. A., & Westlye, M. C. (1992). The myth of the independent voter. University of California Press.
Klar, S., & Krupnikov, Y. (2016). Independent politics: How American disdain for parties leads to political inaction. Cambridge University Press.
Iyengar, S., Lelkes, Y., Levendusky, M., Malhotra, N., & Westwood, S. J. (2019). The origins and consequences of affective polarization in the United States. Annual Review of Political Science, 22, 129–146.
Webster, S. W., & Abramowitz, A. I. (2017). The ideological foundations of affective polarization in the US electorate. American Politics Research, 45(4), 621–647.
Forbes, K. F., & Zampelli, E. M. (2013). The impacts of religion, political ideology, and social capital on religious and secular giving: Evidence from the 2006 Social Capital Community Survey. Applied Economics, 45(17), 2481–2490.
Yen, S. T., & Zampelli, E. M. (2014). What drives charitable donations of time and money? The roles of political ideology, religiosity, and involvement. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 50, 58–67.
Manesi, Z., Van Lange, P. A., Van Doesum, N. J., & Pollet, T. V. (2019). What are the most powerful predictors of charitable giving to victims of Typhoon Haiyan: Prosocial traits, socio-demographic variables, or eye cues? Personality and Individual Differences, 146, 217–225.
Brooks, A. C. (2004). Faith, secularism, and charity. Faith & Economics, 43(Spring), 1–8.
Brooks, A. C. (2007). Who really cares: The surprising truth about compassionate conservatism–America’s charity divide–Who Gives, who doesn’t, and why it matters. Basic Books.
Margolis, M. F., & Sances, M. W. (2017). Partisan differences in nonpartisan activity: The case of charitable giving. Political Behavior, 39(4), 839–864.
Farmer, A., Kidwell, B., & Hardesty, D. M. (2020). Helping a few a lot or many a little: Political ideology and charitable giving. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 30(4), 614–630.
Kim, Y. (2021). Politics, religion, and tax incentives for charitable giving in South Korea. The Korean Economic Review, 37(1), 141–155.
Kim, Y. (2023). Effects of tax benefits on the price elasticity of charitable contributions in South Korea. Pacific Economic Review, 28(2), 206–217.
Kato, H., Goto, T., & Kim, Y. (2023). Tax-Price Elasticities of Charitable Giving and Selection of Declaration: Panel Study of South Korea, (No. 23–05).
Jung, H. (2022). Examining the relationship between political spending and legislative activities. Bulletin of Economic Research, 74(2), 539–568.
Lee, Y. S. (2018). Social media and rigid beliefs: Evidence from impeachment of the president. Available at SSRN 3252932.
Kim, N. (2017). Candlelight and the yellow ribbon: Catalyzing re-democratization in South Korea. Asia-Pacific Journal Japan Focus, 15(14), 1–21.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) Number JP22K01528.
Funding
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research(C), 22K01528, Youngrok Kim.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
There is no conflict or competing interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Kim, Y., Jung, H. The Impact of Changing Political Positions on Charitable Donations: A Case Study of a Political Scandal in South Korea. Rev Socionetwork Strat 17, 145–154 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12626-023-00141-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12626-023-00141-3