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The Impact of Changing Political Positions on Charitable Donations: A Case Study of a Political Scandal in South Korea

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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.

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Availability of Data and Materials

The datasets are available from the Korea Institute of Public Finance, https://www.kipf.re.kr/panel/.

Notes

  1. This is based on raw data (2001–2019) from the Center for Philanthropy, the Beautiful Foundation.

  2. According to the press, Ms. Choi even managed the president’s schedules.

  3. 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].

  4. As shown in Fig. 1, a larger proportion of moderates changed their position to progressivism after the political scandal, but others maintained their ideology.

  5. 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.

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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.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics and Management, University of Hyogo, Kobe, Japan

    Youngrok Kim

  2. Department of Economics, Kookmin University, Seoul, South Korea

    Hoyong Jung

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  1. Youngrok Kim
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  2. Hoyong Jung
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Correspondence to Youngrok Kim.

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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

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