The Korean national assembly elections dataset, 1948-2024: Complete candidate-level records

초록

We introduce the Korean National Assembly Elections Dataset (KNAED), which provides the first complete candidate-level data on all legislative elections in South Korea from 1948 to 2024. KNAED covers 22,571 candidate-election observations across 22 general elections over six constitutional periods, from early post-independence contests through authoritarian rule to the current democratic era. The dataset documents all candidates-both successful and unsuccessful-in constituency and proportional representation contests, offer ing several key advantages for research. First, it spans both authoritarian and democratic periods within a single country, enabling systematic comparisons of electoral dynamics across regime types. Second, unique candidate identifiers allow researchers to trace individual political careers and analyze patterns of incumbency, repeat can didacy, and legislative turnover. Lastly, it includes granular district-level data on turnout, vote totals, and ballot statistics that support diverse analytical applications. We demonstrate the dataset's value by examining three important trends in Korean politics: electoral competition across regime types, incumbency dynamics, and de mographic shifts in the candidate pool. These analyses illustrate how KNAED enables comparative research on elections, representation, and political careers across varying regime contexts.

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