Analysis on the Voting Activities of the 18th National Assembly of South Korea based on the Member-level Similarity

의원간 유사성에 기반한 18대 국회의원 투표행태 분석

This paper aims to propose a research framework of analyzing voting activities of a national assembly on the basis of member-level voting similarity and provides a case study in the $18^{th}$ national assembly in South Korea. First, we propose a bill contentiousness measure that gives a higher score to bills for which ayes and noes are more diversified in both conservative and progressive parties. Based on the bill contentiousness measure, the top 5%, 10%, and 20% bills were identified and used for further analyses. Moreover, we propose a member-level voting similarity measure that compensates for the lower frequency of noes, and evaluate the pair-wise voting similarities for all lawmakers. Then, voting similarity differences to the affiliated/non-affiliated parties were analyzed for the members in the two major parties according to some internal/external key factors. Finally, similar voting groups were identified and their affiliations were investigated based on the multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) and network analysis techniques. A case study on the $18^{th}$ national assembly of South Korea showed that the cohesion of the members in the 'Hanara' party becomes higher than that of the 'Minju' party as the bill contentiousness increases, whereas the number of elected, local constituency versus proportional representation, and the competition intensity in a local constituency were found to be partially influential to the voting activities of lawmakers. In addition, MDS and network analysis showed that there is a distinctive difference between two parties when all bills are analyzed, whereas the diversity of parties increases in the same group as the bill contentiousness increases.