[EAI Opinion Review] Analysis of Presidential Candidates' Cognitive Maps Through Their Declarations of Candidacy

Content Analysis and Semantic Network Analysis of Presidential Candidacy Declarations

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1. Why Analyze Declarations of Candidacy?

A declaration of candidacy marks the official commencement of a candidate's campaign. The official declaration of candidacy is a text that justifies one's bid for the presidency and presents one's values, ideology, vision, policies, and personal history to voters in the most concise yet appealing manner. In essence, it is a document that encapsulates the candidate's vision for the Republic of Korea and their campaign strategy. It serves as the first public test of each candidate's ideas and strategies. Each campaign team endeavors to elicit favorable responses by presenting their vision and values, sometimes directly and sometimes through various symbols and rhetoric, while minimizing their weaknesses and highlighting their strengths. The candidate, along with campaign strategists and public relations experts, meticulously refines every sentence and word, considering the strategies of opposing candidates. Therefore, it is not easy for the public to discern the differences between candidates, free from rhetorical manipulation, and to objectively evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the logic presented by each candidate, especially when observing the declarations of candidates who have historically held opposing ideological and policy stances. This is even more challenging when candidates belong to the same party.

Through content analysis, which identifies issues and visions by analyzing the frequency of core keywords, and semantic network analysis, which examines the relationships between core concepts (nodes), this study aims to identify the core concepts each candidate sought to emphasize in their declarations of candidacy and to elucidate the underlying differences in their perceptions through an analysis of the relationships between these concepts. Specifically, we will examine the differences in the cognitive maps of Park Geun-hye of the ruling party and the so-called 'Big Three' leading opposition candidates (Kim Doo-kwan, Moon Jae-in, Son Hak-kyu), as well as the differences among the opposition candidates themselves. For the analysis, we extracted words from the declarations of candidacy using Professor Kang Seung-sik's KLT (Korean Language Technology) Korean morphological analyzer (Kim Doo-kwan: 847 words, Moon Jae-in: 995 words, Park Geun-hye: 539 words, Son Hak-kyu: 720 words) and selected the top 30 keywords based on frequency. For semantic relationship analysis, we coded whether these keywords appeared within the same sentence as 1, and 0 otherwise. Based on the adjacency of the top 30 keywords within each candidate's speech, network graphics were constructed.

2. Overall Keyword Analysis

Moving Beyond the Paradigm of 'Conservatism = Nationalism, Progressivism = Emphasis on the Common People'

Park Geun-hye Emphasizes 'People' and 'Individuals'; Opposition Candidates Simultaneously Emphasize 'Nation' and 'People'

The content analysis results, based on keyword frequency, reveal several significant characteristics. In past elections, conservative candidates tended to emphasize 'nation' and 'patriotism,' while progressive candidates emphasized people-centric terms like 'people' or 'common people.' However, Park Geun-hye, a conservative candidate, used the word 'people' as many as 56 times and 'individual' 10 times, while using 'nation' only 13 times and 'Republic of Korea' about 5 times. In contrast, opposition candidates frequently used national concepts alongside terms like 'people' or 'common people.' Son Hak-kyu used the word 'people' 28 times, making it the most frequent keyword, while using 'Republic of Korea' 17 times and 'nation' only 6 times. Kim Doo-kwan used 'people' 24 times and 'common people' 13 times, while also using national concepts such as 'nation' 30 times and 'country' 13 times. Moon Jae-in used 'country' 24 times and 'nation' 17 times, while using 'people' 18 times and 'individual' 16 times. Park Geun-hye's departure from this conventional pattern appears to reflect a shift in governing philosophy towards prioritizing the 'nation' to the 'people' and focusing on individual lives and happiness. While this may reflect the growing importance of individual quality of life as a key agenda item, the strategic consideration of avoiding associations with the nationalism of the Park Chung-hee military dictatorship era likely contributed to the restrained use of the term 'nation.'

Core Messages Are Repeated

Park Geun-hye - 'People,' 'Happiness,' 'Dream'; Kim Doo-kwan - 'Equality,' 'Common People,' 'Chaebol'

Moon Jae-in - 'Jobs,' 'Growth,' 'Welfare'; Son Hak-kyu - 'Integration,' 'Livelihood,' 'Community'

Furthermore, the core visions and values presented by each campaign are consistently repeated throughout their declarations. Conversely, frequently appearing concepts indicate the core keywords of each campaign. For Park Geun-hye, the components of her core slogan, "A happy Republic of Korea where every individual's dream comes true," are continuously repeated. Alongside the 56 uses of the concept 'people,' 'happiness' was mentioned 19 times and 'national happiness' 14 times, totaling 33 mentions. 'Dream' also ranked high among core keywords with 15 mentions. Governor Kim Doo-kwan's slogan, "A country that empowers me, an equal nation," also features prominently in his declaration. 'Equality' appeared 13 times and 'equal nation' 12 times. The concepts of 'common people' (13 times) and 'chaebol' (10 times), representing inequality, were used as supporting concepts for the slogan. For Son Hak-kyu, the core policy messages of his slogan were also consistently repeated, with 'society' (14 times), 'integration' (14 times), and 'livelihood' (12 times) being frequently used terms. In Moon Jae-in's case, as his slogan "President of our country" is a neutral expression lacking policy content, concepts related to policy tasks such as 'jobs' (21 times), 'growth' (18 times), and 'welfare' (18 times) were predominantly used. While Park Geun-hye's campaign emphasized the slogan, and Son Hak-kyu and Kim Doo-kwan emphasized both the slogan and policies, Moon Jae-in's declaration primarily highlighted policy tasks.

Park Geun-hye, Moon Jae-in, and Son Hak-kyu Employ a Strategy of Minimal Differentiation; Kim Doo-kwan Pursues a Strategy of Maximal Differentiation

An analysis of the actual declarations of candidacy (Table 2) reveals a prominent tendency among major candidates to pursue a strategy of "minimal differentiation" aimed at appealing to centrist voters, rather than a strategy of "maximal differentiation." Although not appearing as high-frequency keywords, Park Geun-hye emphasized progressive-friendly agendas such as "economic democratization" and "tailored welfare" as three core tasks for national happiness. Similarly, Moon Jae-in and Son Hak-kyu, while emphasizing "universal welfare" and "economic democratization," also proposed conservative-friendly policy tasks like "growth," with Moon Jae-in presenting "four major growth strategies" and Son Hak-kyu advocating for "progressive growth." Kim Doo-kwan, on the other hand, directly employed the traditional polarization framework of "common people versus chaebol reform" and emphasized progressive symbols of fundamental change, such as "national restructuring" and "reform," indicating a strategy of maximal differentiation. This may reflect his own identity but also a realistic assessment that, as a latecomer among opposition candidates, he urgently needs to differentiate himself from frontrunners Moon Jae-in and Son Hak-kyu.

[Table 1] Frequency of Utterances for Top 30 Core Keywords

3. Semantic Network Analysis by Candidate

Park Geun-hye - Realizing Happiness Through the Economy; Key Tasks Include Jobs, Welfare, and Transparency (Economic Democratization)

Source of Leadership Emphasizes "Trust"; Deficiencies in "Security" and "Environment" Domains

First, examining the semantic network graph, the concepts of "dream" and "happiness" are densely located at the center around Park Geun-hye, indicating that these concepts serve as the core hub of her declaration of candidacy. "Economy" acts as the connecting concept linking "people" who "dream" of "happiness" with candidate Park Geun-hye. The concept of economy is positioned at the center of the network among these concepts. As noted earlier, national concepts such as "nation" and "Republic of Korea" are connected to major concepts but are located at the periphery (upper end) of the network, reflecting a people-centric approach in her governing philosophy.

The economic "challenges" (lower left) confirm Park Geun-hye's policy position shift, as they are linked to "jobs," "welfare," and "transparency" instead of the past "growth-first" principle. The fact that the "economic challenges" concept in the lower left is not linked to the "growth" concept actually confirms Park Geun-hye's strategy to minimize differentiation from opposition candidates in her policies. This result is precisely consistent with what has been done. Furthermore, as the "economic challenges" concept is linked to the "transparency" concept, it can be inferred that the focus is primarily on "expanding transparency" for economic democratization.

The core concept connecting "government," "politics," and "the people" is condensed into the concept of "trust." This result infers that candidate Park will consider securing the people's trust as a core task during the election campaign. Her attachment to the concept of trust is also confirmed by her linking the "Korean Peninsula" issue to the concept of "trust." However, the near absence of keywords related to security, inter-Korean relations, and recently debated environmental issues suggests that Candidate Park will focus her campaign message on domestic economic agendas.

Moon Jae-in's national policy agenda: Clearly highlighting "jobs-welfare state-growth" policy tasks

Relative advantage in agendas such as women and peace, but insufficient linkage between core slogans and core policy tasks

Analysis of Moon Jae-in's declaration of candidacy: The network graphic results show, above all, that the declaration of candidacy is structured around core policy tasks. The core keywords are densely arranged around the concepts of "welfare," "jobs," "growth," and "economy." In fact, the declaration presented "fairness and justice" as the foundation of the nation, proposed "inclusive growth, people-centered growth, ecological growth, and cooperative growth" as the four major growth strategies, and presented "a strong welfare state" and "a revolution in jobs" as main policy tasks. Furthermore, the concept of "welfare state" is linked to the concept of "investment" rather than unilateral handouts, suggesting a strategy of minimal differentiation targeting the center.

Along with this, by presenting “A country where children, women, and the elderly smile brightly” and “A strong Republic of Korea, a peaceful Korean Peninsula” as key tasks, the policies for the vulnerable and security agenda were also put forth. This implies that these issues, positioned peripherally in the network, will actually take precedence over economic tasks. However, the relative strength lies in the fact that issues such as women and peace, which were not revealed as core keywords in the declarations of other candidates, were included as top-tier keywords.

However, it is regrettable that the core slogan "President of Our Country" is somewhat positioned in the upper left and lacks a close connection with the main core policy task concepts, indicating a lack of precise linkage with the central content of the presidential declaration.

[Figure 1] Meaning Network of Park Geun-hye's Declaration of Candidacy (Top 30 Core Keywords)

[Figure 2] Meaning Network of Moon Jae-in's Declaration of Candidacy (Top 30 Core Keywords)

Son Hak-kyu: Overcoming conflict, division, and discrimination, tasks condensed into "social integration, inter-Korean integration, political integration"

Emphasis on "people's livelihood, democracy, welfare, progressive growth"; need to complement the integration logic of the education agenda and the "competent progressivism" theory

A comparative analysis of the keyword network graphics of Son Hak-kyu's declaration of candidacy shows a much simpler structure compared to that of Park Geun-hye or Moon Jae-in. In particular, the overall logical structure could be simplified as a result of consistently connecting problem diagnosis and solutions around core keywords.

First, the reality and crisis of the Republic of Korea are concisely summarized with the keywords "conflict" and "division." That is, the tasks in the socio-economic domain of "people's livelihood," "democratization," and "welfare," and the proposed task in the security domain of "peace community on the Korean Peninsula" are both linked to the concepts of "conflict" and "division." The tasks for resolution also appear to be bundled into a single value of "community integration," such as "social integration, inter-Korean integration, and political integration," as concisely expressed in the declaration. The repetitive message of integration to overcome conflict, division, and discrimination is expected to be clearly conveyed to voters.

However, the issue of "education," emphasized by most candidates, appears to be hardly linked to other national tasks and issues. Although the declaration emphasized that the desired leadership for the Republic of Korea is "competent progressivism, dignified progressivism," if these graphic analysis results are correct, it would have been necessary to specify the concept of competent progressivism with meaningful concepts to support it.

Kim Doo-kwan: Based on a dichotomous perception framework of "chaebol-centered-growth economy" versus "working-class-centered-equal state"

Concise and consistent logical development centered on the concept of equality; democratization concept not linked

Similar to Son Hak-kyu's declaration of candidacy, Kim Doo-kwan's declaration of candidacy is characterized by its approach of consistently explaining a few keywords rather than elaborately explaining core keywords by sector, as seen in the cases of Park Geun-hye and Moon Jae-in. The network graphic suggests that Governor Kim Doo-kwan presents a concise logical structure centered on "equality."

Second, it is confirmed that a simple dichotomous structure of "chaebol-centered-growth-oriented economy" versus "working-class-centered-equal society, equal state" forms the basic logical structure. Unlike other candidates who include concepts appealing to centrist voters while minimizing differentiation along with value and policy concepts that differentiate them from opposing candidates, Kim Doo-kwan's declaration is confirmed through the graph to be thoroughly based on an polarization strategy.

Given that it is thoroughly based on a "strategy of maximizing differentiation," it is highly likely that the declaration was written targeting voters with a tendency towards the opposition. It can be assessed as a relatively difficult logic to elicit a favorable response from centrist voters. Furthermore, as seen in the graph, due to the strong and consistent logic regarding the socio-economic system that guarantees privilege, it is regrettable that a core concept like "democratization" deviates from the overall logical structure.■

[Figure 3] Meaning Network of Son Hak-kyu's Declaration of Candidacy (Top 30 Core Keywords)

[Figure 4] Meaning Network of Kim Doo-kwan's Declaration of Candidacy (Top 30 Core Keywords)

[Table 2] Comparative Analysis of Declarations of Candidacy

Note: The author organized the presidential declarations of candidacy for each candidate.