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Journal Article

Socialized Soft Power: Recasting Analytical Path and Public Diplomacy (2020.12)

  • Author : Yooil Bae, Yong Wook Lee
  • Journal : Journal of International Relations and Development
  • Publisher : Springer
  • Volume : 23(4)
  • Date : 2020. 12
  • Abstract  : Soft power debate has not analytically moved beyond the questions of whether soft power matters and of whether soft power can work independent of hard power since Nye’s initial formulation. Furthermore, the question of how a state selects the source(s) of its soft power remains silent in the literature. This neglect leads to the underspecification of the nature and content of a given state’s soft power policy. In this article, we fill in these gaps by recasting the conventional understanding of soft power conceptually and analytically. Conceptually, we make the case that soft power should be understood as a form of productive power for its conceptual and analytical distinction. On the basis of this reformulation, we specify an analytical framework that helps map out how a state determines the sources of its soft power. The crux of the framework is the notion of ‘dual process’ of international recognition and domestic self-identification mutually informing and reinforcing each other for the identification of a specific source of a given state’s soft power. We illustrate the analytical framework with an empirical example of South Korea’s launch and consolidation of its new ODA policy, Knowledge Sharing Program.

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Causes of the Kim Young-sam Administration’s Failure to Revise the South Korea–U.S. Missile Guidelines

Abstract : The purpose of this study is to analyze the causes for the failure of the Kim Young- sam administration to revise the South Korea-U.S. missile guidelines. The missile guidelines have been revised on four occasions by the governments of Kim Dae-jung, Lee Myung-bak, and Moon Jae-in, yet despite its clear willingness to amend the guidelines, the administration of Kim Young-sam was unable to negotiate a revision. This study explores the reasons for the failure and makes two important contributions. First, it carries out a theoretical approach through the historical context of the South Korea-U.S. missile agreement. Second, it explores the reality of the South Korea-U.S. missile agreement and suggests meaningful directions for new negotiations. The study reveals similar characteristics across all governments. However, the Kim Young-sam administration exhibited strong hostility toward North Korea, raising the issue of the risk of entrapment during the South Korea-U.S. missile negotiations.

Peace and the European Intellectual History

  • Author : Byung-Kon Kim
  • Journal : ZdkGDS
  • Publisher : Koreanisch-Deutsche Gesellschaft Fuer Sozialwissenschaften
  • Volume : 34(4)
  • Date : 2020.11
  • Abstract : The main theme of this thesis is a historical examination of the meaning of peace in the European intellectual history. Academic research and the practical pursuit of peace have existed for a long time. However, respectively different meanings and limitations have been shown with regard to the understanding of peace in each time period. Also, perceptions of peace before modern times were progressed with clear limitations at the very least. The ancient Greeks understood people to be beings that cannot live without politics and the state and they understood issues of peaceful living to be the meaning of harmonious living among fellow citizens who belong to the same polis and they were unable to achieve true consciousness related to issues of peace with outside countries. Perceptions of universal human peace became possible after cosmopolitanism was met with the collapse of the polis and the appearance of the Roman empire. Also, Stoa’s pacifism changed through Christianity. Full-scale and active pacifism appeared with the appearance of early Christianity. As it became established as a state religion during the middle ages, active pacifism was reexamined and just wars were once again accepted. Therefore, full-scale and strong pacifism was developed after modern times and particularly after the appearance of Johan Galtung. Galtung presented issues of active peace, which transcends the passive concept of a simple absence of conflict, based on an expansive understanding of violence. Also, Senghaas expanded the issue of peace by connecting it with civilization. Senghaas viewed that a civilized conflict resolution model used within a nation can be applied to international relations as well. To him, peaceful international order can be constructed through processes in which the similar national order of diverse regions supplement each other and become stabilized. Theories of peace in the 21st century are connected to feminism and ecologism and they are developing futuristically as they embrace gender issues, environment issues, issues of sustainability, and perceptions of civilization and culture.

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Everyday Authoritarianism in North Korea (2020.11)

  • Author : Alexander Dukalskis & Hyung-Min Joo
  • Journal : Europe-Asia Studies
  • Publisher : Taylor & Francis
  • Volume : Online first
  • Date : 2020년 11월
  • Abstract : This article examines the political consequences of widespread social changes in North Korea to illuminate how, if at all, shifts in everyday life influence the power of an autocratic government. Our study is based on 23 interviews with North Korean defectors in 2017 and supplemented by interviews conducted in previous years. The main finding is that social practices associated with marketisation, flows of information, and increased corruption have not yet provided the foundation for collective challenges to the regime. It is, however, also clear that official norms, rules, and institutions have been significantly weakened to adapt to new social realities.

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We or They? A Summit, Accents and South Korean Stereotypes toward North Koreans (2020.11)

  • Author : Han Il Chang & Woo Chang Kang
  • Journal : International Journal of Intercultural Relations
  • Publisher : Pergamon-Elsevier Science
  • Volume : 79
  • Publication Date : November 2020
  • Abstract : The effects of verbal accents on intergroup attitudes are well documented. This study aims to enrich our understanding by exploring how those effects vary according to the speaker’s gender and the political context. We conducted two online survey experiments in which South Korean citizens were randomly exposed to speakers exhibiting one of four accent conditions – South Korean male and female accents and North Korean male and female accents – a week before and two days after the 2018 Singapore summit between North Korea and the United States, in order to test hypotheses based on literatures from political science, social psychology and evolutionary biology. The results indicate that only exposure to a North Korean male accent, not a North Korean female accent, strengthened stereotypes about North Koreans among South Koreans prior to the summit. Further, this negative effect disappeared immediately after the summit.

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How Responsive is Trade Adjustment Assistance? (2020.10)

  • Author : Sung Eun Kim  & Krzysztof Pelc
  • Journal : Political Science Research and Methods
  • Publisher : Cambridge University Press
  • Volume : First View
  • Publication Date : October 2020
  • Abstract : How responsive is the US’ Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) to the labor dislocation that results from trade integration? Recent findings suggest that the world’s most ambitious trade adjustment program barely responds to import shocks, and that the shortfall is made up by disability insurance and early retirement. This holds considerable implications: TAA offers a lens onto the central question of whether developed democracies can effectively redistribute the gains from international economic integration. We take a closer look at these results. Using petition-level data over a 20-year period, we find that TAA is between 1.7 and 3.3 times more responsive than current estimates suggest. Yet the news is not all good. As we show, the responsiveness of TAA has decreased considerably since the 1990s, just as developed democracies started facing increasing pushback against liberalization. This shortfall, in turn, has political consequences: areas where TAA has been least responsive were also more likely to shift toward voting for Trump in the 2016 Presidential election. Our findings speak to the considerable challenge governments face in aiding workers “left behind” by liberalization.

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Foreign Policy Dilemma in South Korean Democracy: Challenge of Polarized and Politicized Public Opinion (2020.10)

  • Author : Shin-wha Lee
  • Journal : Peace Studies
  • Publisher : Peace and Democracy Institute
  • Volume : 28(2)
  • Publication Date : October 2020
  • Abstract : The paper empirically examines the extent to which the public’s perceptions and preferences have been reflected in the official foreign policymaking process in Korea. Through this analysis, the paper discusses the relationship between democracy and foreign policy determinants, and highlights the problems that arise due to polarization of the public. The paper argues that the divided political jinyoung nonri (partisanship argument) within the country poses the biggest threat to Korean diplomacy, as the political polarization among both political elites and civic groups increasingly causes great restrictions in foreign policymaking. The paper demonstrates how these issues have been relevant in recent years by analyzing and comparing the foreign policy decision-making process in Korea during three diplomatic episodes: the Mad cow disease protests in 2008, opposition against the ‘comfort women’ agreement signed in 2015; and public debates about the deployment of THAAD Batteries since 2017. These cases demonstrate how Korean governments may be prohibited from pursuing foreign policies essential for its national interests and security due to domestic pressure from a polarized public, or promote unwise strategies based on misguided populism. In many ways, this emphasizes the need for a ‘win-win’ approach between the government and citizens through constructive conversations about Korea’s foreign policy, especially because the public will continue to be more involved in the foreign policy decision-making process.

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The Chinese Failure to Disarm North Korea: Geographical Proximity, U.S. Unipolarity, and Alliance Restraint (2020.10)

  • Author :  Dong Sun Lee, Iordanka Alexandrova & Yihei Zhao
  • Journal : Contemporary Security Policy
  • Publisher : Taylor & Francis
  • Volume : 41(4)
  • Publication Date : October 2020
  • Abstract : This article explains China’s abortive attempt to stop North Korean nuclear development between 1993 and 2016. It attributes this failure to two international conditions. The first is geographical contiguity. As an adjacent great power, China had limited leverage over North Korea. Beijing’s threats of sanctions lacked credibility, as sanctions could trigger dangerous local instabilities. Its security inducements implied a risk of subordination, which Pyongyang was unwilling to accept. The second is the unipolar international system. Unipolarity curbed Beijing’s ability to protect Pyongyang from the United States, while simultaneously inducing China to pass the buck of restraining North Korea to the American unipole. This article corroborates these main arguments by drawing upon primary and secondary sources in Korean, Chinese, and English.

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Territorial threat and women’s legislative representation(2020.07)

Abstract : Why do some countries have fewer women in parliament than do others? Recent studies find that women have less access to positions of political power in countries facing external threats. Existing studies, however, do not differentiate between types of threat. We theorize that territorial threats are a particular driver of gender inequality in national parliaments. When a country’s land is under threat, people prefer having “tough” representatives in the national legislature who are competent on the military and defence more so than when a country faces other threats. Moreover, when countries face territorial threats, they build larger standing armies and adopt military conscription, raising the level of militarization in society, which negatively influences women’s access to the national legislature. Using a time-series cross-sectional data set of 101 democracies, we find that countries facing external territorial threats have lower percentages of women in parliament compared to countries facing other or no external threats. Additionally, we find that countries with higher levels of militarization have fewer women in the national legislature.

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Envy and Pride: How Economic Inequality Deepens Happiness Inequality in South Korea (2020.07)

  • Author :  Woo Chang Kang, Jae Seung Lee, and BK Song
  • Journal : Social Indicators Research
  • Publisher : Springer
  • Volume : 150(2)
  • Publication Date : July 2020
  • DOI: 10.1007/s11205-020-02339-2 
  • Abstract : This paper examines how economic inequality at the local level affects individuals’ subjective well-being (SWB) through social comparison in Seoul, South Korea. We implement a multi-level analysis combining asset inequality, calculated using the actual transaction prices of apartments, and public opinion surveys conducted by Seoul Metropolitan City between 2008 and 2016. Our analysis shows that inequality negatively affects SWB among respondents whose family income is lower than the median (the envy effect), but drives up SWB among the other half (the pride effect). Further analysis on the effect of inequality on subjective class awareness corroborates a social comparison mechanism: the haves embrace an upper-class awareness as local inequality increases, while the have-nots embrace a lower class awareness. These findings suggest that, despite concerns about economic inequality and its negative consequences, calling for policy reform to reduce inequality may be unpersuasive to the better off members of society, especially if doing so increases individual financial burdens.