Climate change co-sponsorship networks in South Korea: focusing on formal and informal ties of legislators

ABSTRACT

This study analyzes the formation of climate change co-sponsorship networks among South Korean legislators from the 18th to the 20th National Assembly and provides a comprehensive understanding of the interdependent co-sponsorship behaviour to address climate change at the domestic level. Legislators’ formal ties are defined by their political party membership whereas informal ties are defined by other shared characteristics such as re-election status as well as regional (jiyon) and education-based (hakyon) ties. While it has been commonly viewed that Korean climate politics did not experience major conflicts between political parties, this study observes that Korean legislators demonstrate strong party homophily in their climate change co-sponsorship networks. This study also finds that rational legislators are influenced by their informal social relations. More experienced legislators tend to be less engaged in co-sponsorship activities and legislators from the politically sensitive regions are more likely to form co-sponsorship ties among themselves.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change co-sponsorship network
• Korean climate change politics
• social network analysis
• valued exponential random graph models (ERGMs)
• legislative behaviour

Acknowledgements

The author sincerely appreciates the constructive comments from the anonymous reviewer.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 To address transnational climate impacts, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was established in 1992, followed by the Kyoto Protocol which was adopted in 1997, and the Paris Agreement in 2015. Aside from international efforts, each country has been formulating domestic legislation to prevent, mitigate, and adapt to climate change. Domestic legislation is essential as it makes an international climate change agreement more favourable; without domestic efforts, international agreements become meaningless (Townshend et al., 2013).

2 SKY stands for Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University and these schools have been the top three prestigious schools in South Korea.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ahyoung Cho

Ahyoung Cho is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Boston University. She received her Master of Public Policy from the Graduate School of Public Administration at Seoul National University in 2018. Her current research interests include public opinion on climate change, environmental justice, climate policies, legislative behaviour, and political methodology.