The conditional effects of natural disasters on the public approval of the president: evidence from South Korea, 2013-2022/
Jaeyoung Hur and Hyun Jin Choi
- 2023
Do natural disasters affect presidential approval ratings? In this study, we argue that in South Korea this relationship is conditional on regional partisan cleavages. Since partisanship induces perceptual biases among distinct social groups, we expect that (1) the president's co-partisans will not blame their president even if the government fails to prevent or mitigate damage from natural disasters, and (2) human and economic losses from disasters, or delivery of disaster relief aid, may boost approval ratings in partisan strongholds.