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The Growth Of Civil Society And Citizen Input To Foreign Policymaking:
The Case Of Korea
Bridgewater College of Virginia
Northwestern University
International Studies Association
March 1998
I. Introduction
Though a half century has passed since the creation of a modern nation-state, Korea lags far behind Western European nations in the development of a civil society. It may be due to a number of factors, the most important of which could be the different path to modernization Korea has taken and the forced imposition of the nation-state system on a Confucian social structure. As such, the Seoul government's decision-making in general and foreign policymaking in particular have often lacked sensitivity to what the citizens may think and desire.
This paper is an attempt to analyze the relationship between the growth of civil society and citizen input to foreign policymaking in Korea. Context-wise, it is an outgrowth of an earlier work on democratization and foreign policy change in Korea (Park, Ko, and Kim, 1994) in which a preliminary theoretical framework was presented. As shown in Figure 1, the framework contains a two-stage causal link. In the first stage, democratization would produce changes in the nation's ideology and value systems, the state-society relationship, the political structure and processes, and the regime's political interest. In the second stage, these developments influence the foreign policy goals, capacity, and decision-making, ultimately leading to concrete changes in foreign policy.
Figure 1. Democratization and Foreign Policy
Source: Park, Ko and Kim (1994: 171)
This study begins from that section of Figure 1 dealing with the changing state-society relationship as it affects foreign policymaking. As discussed in the original work, the transition from authoritarianism to democracy is likely to reduce the state autonomy from the public while increasing it vis-[daggerdbl]-vis social elites. The transition would also weaken state control over foreign policy resources but enhance state legitimacy. Each of these changes is likely to affect a regime's foreign policy goals and capacity.
If the degree of state control over foreign policy resources is defined as the scope of a state's control over all resources that may be mobilized in conducting foreign policy (Salmore and Salmore, 1978: 111; East, 1978: 134), democratization should have both positive and negative influences on state control over foreign policy resources. As democratization proceeds, the scope and efficiency of state control over such resources as manpower, economic activities, and the mass media will become restricted. This in turn will produce a decrease in the state's foreign policy capacity. On the other hand, the shift in the nature of resource control from coercive to collaborative (Crone, 1988: 257) as part of the regime's increasing legitimacy is expected to strengthen the government's ability to utilize foreign policy resources.
Democratization may also bring about fundamental changes in the autonomy of the state in relation to the society as a whole. As suggested by Crone (1988), state autonomy consists of two aspects: autonomy from social elites and that from the masses. A common feature of authoritarian regimes is that the state enjoys a high degree of autonomy from popular influence but remains quite vulnerable to elite influence, especially that of the military and business conglomerates. Democratization, however, would alter the relationships by lowering the state's autonomy from the public, and this should strengthen the regime's capacity to mobilize voluntary support from the masses. In contrast, the impact of democratization on state autonomy from social elites becomes more complex. Dominant elites in the previous authoritarian regimes will certainly lose their political clout, while a relatively large number of social groups may emerge as new pressure groups. The likely candidates are labor unions, political parties, interest groups, civic organizations, and the mass media. Despite a widely held proposition that the increased state autonomy from social elites would generally boost a nation's overall political performance, its impact on foreign policy capacity is not so straightforward. Because the new elites representing these social groups would have much broader popular bases than the elites of the authoritarian era, for instance, a government's foreign policy capacity would not necessary increase as the result of an increased autonomy from the new elites. Instead, it can be hypothesized that a more reciprocal relationship between the state and these new social elites may help boost the nation's foreign policy capacity.
The central question of this paper is then whether this and other related hypotheses hold water for Korea in the 1990s. It begins with a cursory look at the concept of civil society before presenting a historical sketch of its growth in Korea. It then moves to the linkage between public opinion and foreign policy in Korea to lay an analytical foundation for the question of whether the citizens matter. Given the lack of systematic research on the topic, a case of citizen movement is examined to explore the role of civic groups in Seoul's foreign policymaking- the protest against Japan's handling of the issue of Korean women drafted for military sexual slavery during World War II, commonly known as comfort women. . The paper concludes with some suggestions for theoretical synthesis and a discussion of agenda for future research.
II. The Growth Of Civil Society In Korea
Without going into a detailed historical narrative about how modern societies have evolved with the demise of feudalistic communities, suffice it to say . la Tester (1992) that
...the label of 'civil society'can be applied to all those social relationships which involve the voluntary association and participation of individuals acting in their private capacities. In a simple and perhaps even simplistic formula, civil society can be said to equal the milieu of private contractual relationship. It is a coming together of private individuals, an edifice of those who are otherwise strange to one another...As such, civil society is clearly distinct from the state. It involves all those relationships which go beyond the purely familial and yet are not of the state. Civil society is about our basic societal relationships and experiences (p. 8).
While this definition of civil society provides a point of departure from the historical perspective, we would like to narrow it down from Tester's rather broad scope of anything that falls between the familial and the realm of the state. Specifically, we intend to use the development of not-for-profit civic organizations as an indicator of civil society. Such a posture is based on a premise that at the early stage of civil society, groups pursuing their private interests will emerge first. While these interest-seeking groups are important agents in the transition from the feudal to a modern society, we see their emergence only as the necessary condition for a civil society. It is our contention that the later, more mature, stage of civil society is characterized by the growth of voluntary organizations whose interests lie in the promotion of public goods- especially those that are likely to be impaired by uncontrolled pursuit of private interests. It is because the emergence of non-economic and non-governmental groups would signify the growth of citizens'social consciousness, which in turn could work as a constraint on the government's policymaking.
According to this yardstick, the growth of civil society has been indeed slow in Korea. Perhaps we should not over-emphasize the slowness, however, considering that it had taken the Europeans a few centuries since the Treaty of Westphalia to develop a civil society. In fact, the feudal Europe and the Confucian Korea shared many similarities. Most importantly, it was the state, or the ruling class, that had the monopoly on decision-making, especially in foreign relations, because there had existed no independent private sector: what we consider today to be personal affairs were all part of the "overarching system which determined the place of the monarch's subject in his kingdom"(Tester, 1992:14).
Confucianism went one step further with its doctrine of educability of the masses. In effect, there was no distinction between the state and society in the Confucian school of thought. The state was charged with the task of cultivating the moral values of its subjects through rites. It was the state that had to teach and thus transform the behavior of the ruled. The people did not have any say in the role of the state, except when they were mobilized in the change of regimes through a war or revolution. As noted by a Korean observer, "[t] his Asian version of an organic state contrasts starkly with the notion of a liberal pluralist state, in which the state is believed to be what the civil society makes it "(Lee, 1995: 161).
Does this imply then that the prospect is dim for Korea to nurture a civil society in the foreseeable future? Would the Koreans have to wait hundreds of years as the Europeans did? Probably not, especially if the Koreans can exploit the latecomer's advantage and telescope the learning process. There is already an emerging sign that in just 50 years since the founding of a nation-state in 1948, Korea has begun to show an accelerating trend toward a civil society.
Insofar as the growth of civil society is concerned, Korea's contemporary history can be divided into three periods: 1945-1961, 1961-1987, and 1987-present. From the first period, the first three years (1945-1948) may be excluded as Korea- the southern half- was under a U.S. military rule in the aftermath of Japan's defeat in World War II and ensuing departure from the Korean peninsula. Of the remainder, the period of 1948-1960 was one in which a Confucian scholar/patriarch named Syngman Rhee ruled as if he were the last emperor of the previous Yi dynasty. Despite his American education, Rhee's reign was anything but democratic. Since the nation was not only poverty-stricken but also had to endure the Korean War (1950-1953) and its aftermath, Rhee was able to get away with his dictatorship. When he was removed from power in 1960 by a student revolution, there occurred a sudden backlash. Popular demands, which hitherto had been contained by the regime, erupted without control; almost everyday there were street demonstrations demanding one type of reform another. As a result, the nation fell into a state of anarchy, which then gave justification to Major General Park Chung-hee's military coup in May 1961. Though the one-year period from the April Student Revolution to the coup díÈtat saw the mushrooming of civic organizations, they were not the kind that normally grow in a democratizing society but the instruments used by the people to vent their frustration. But even those movements were killed by the Korean military.
Technically, the next period can be broken into two: Park's rule from 1961 to 1979 and that by his protÈgÈ, Chun Doo-hwan, from 1980 to 1987. For starters, Park Chung-hee was not a strong believer in democracy. As the building of a democratic state was not on the top of his political agenda, Park sought his legitimacy from somewhere else. His answer was the economic growth through industrialization and exportation. His regime was a prototype of development dictatorship. Democracy could wait, Park reasoned, until after the most basic of the needs- feeding the people- can be fulfilled. Opposition was brutally persecuted whether it came from the political arena or not. While he was in office, only those civic groups created by the government thrived. Their primary function was to project the image of a democratic society to the outside world. To his credit, Park succeeded in solving the food problem and built the foundation for industrialization. So obsessed with exportation was Park that he presided over a regularly scheduled meeting of bureaucrats and businessmen to promote exports.
Park's success with economic development programs stimulated the rise of a middle class. It was from about the early 1970s when South Korea became a NIC (newly industrializing country) that Korea's middle class with their newly found wealth began to ask for a more democratic form of governance. From Park's perspective, it must have been an unintended consequence of economic growth. Nevertheless, the increasing level of wealth leading to democratization was a pre-determined course of development for a highly literate and homogeneous society like Korea's. As shown in Figure 2, it was a virtually inevitable process in which economic growth produced the middle class and they in turn came to demand democratizing reforms.
Figure 2. Growth of Civil Society and Policymaking
But old regimes die hard. From about 1973, a series of popular protests was launched against Park's authoritarian rule, though they were brutally crushed by the government. Hence civic and student groups calling for democratization had to operate underground for fear of imprisonment. In such a political environment, the birth of a liberal and pluralistic society was simply unthinkable. If anything, social movements were regimented to augment the government's economic growth drive. The most telling case was the Saemaeul Woondong (New Community Movement) which was designed to mobilize and indoctrinate the citizens with the virtues of communitarian ethics. Park was not only the CEO of Korea, Inc., but also the godfather for its employees.
When Park was assassinated in 1979, there was another eruption of pent-up energy for democratization, as it had happened in the 1960-1961 period. But again the spring of democratization in 1980 was short-lived. Using the Kwangju Democratization Movement of May 1980 as a pretext, the military staged another coup in which Chun Doo-hwan rose to power. Calling himself an adopted son of the late Park Chung-hee, Major General Chun followed Park's footsteps and attempted to build his legitimacy, with some success, on social and economic stabilization. Social stability was maintained with a tight control of protest activities, while economic stabilization was sought by controlling inflation- most times by political pressures on chaebol (business conglomerates).
Despite Chun's efforts to maintain an authoritarian grip on the Korean society, Korea's economy was growing rapidly and, with it, the citizens'discontent with authoritarianism. In a sense, it was an irony that authoritarian regimes had to pursue economic growth for their legitimacy even though its long-term effect would be the demise of authoritarianism itself. And it was Seoul's decision to host the 1988 summer Olympic Games that put the proverbial final nail on the coffin of authoritarianism. The preparation for the Olympics not only afforded the citizens a chance to compare their society with those of other nations, but also raised their sense of socio-political efficacy. No longer would they remain the subjects receiving orders from the top; they would partake in the governance of their nation.
As proof, one needs to look no further than NGO-related activities that grew in leaps and bounds from the early 1980s. Demands for democratization welled, and toward the end of Chun's tenure it was not just students and radicals, but ordinary citizens who joined street demonstrations. In 1987 Chun succumbed to popular pressure and staged the first-ever peaceful transfer of power in Korea's constitutional history; the only catch was that it was to his life-long deputy, Roh Tae-woo, Chun's classmate in the Korean Military Academy.
Unlike Chun, Roh was not a leader with strong will, the result of which was the country mired in an incessant battle between the conservative hard-liners and the pro-democracy progressives. That he had to form a coalition government with two opposition parties did not help either. More importantly, however, it was Roh's lack of vision, whether good or bad, that caused the nation to drift. Paradoxically, his wavering leadership allowed the citizens to vent their demands more freely and facilitated the growth of civic groups.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the ensuing end of the Cold War, the lid was finally lifted from authoritarian control. One should remember that Roh's regime was civilian in form but was military authoritarian in substance, albeit less so than either Park's or Chun's. In 1987 the Koreans may have achieved a democratic transition, but it was merely the first step toward democratic consolidation. That is why when a long-time leader of democratization movement, Kim Young-sam, became Roh's successor and won the presidential election in 1992, he was expected to launch a truly civilian democracy. In fact, Kim used the term 'civilian government' as his trademark.
Unfortunately, Kim Young-sam was poorly equipped to lead the nation that had gone way past the threshold of democratization and the society that began to manifest liberal pluralistic colors. His democratizing reforms made a jump-start but fizzled for he lacked an understanding of how a rapidly pluralizing society operated. His failure can be attributed largely to one cause: his style of rule that some critics called a civilian dictatorship. While dictatorship may be an unfair characterization, a dogmatic rule may be a more apt depiction. Citizens'consciousness had reached the point of not tolerating a dogmatic rule- especially by someone who was considered lacking in basic intellect and administrative skills. As in Roh Tae-woo's regime, Kim lost control of the society, which in turn was a blessing in disguise for the growth of civil society. While Roh and Kim were struggling to govern, the Korean society had leapt beyond the range of authoritarian or dogmatic reign by a particular regime.
With the election of Kim Dae-jung as president in December 1997, Korea has achieved the first lateral transfer of power between the ruling and opposition parties. Though Kim Dae-jung has also spent his lifetime fighting authoritarianism, his style of governance is expected to differ from his predecessor's. For one, he would want to distance himself from the failed policies of Kim Young-sam that had pushed the national economy to the brink of default. For another, Kim Dae-jung is known to be a man of learning- not a small achievement for someone who has devoted most of his life to pro-democracy struggles.
During these three periods, how did the indicators of civil society behave? Put differently, what was the pattern of growth for voluntary organizations dedicated to the promotion of public interest?
Korea's civil society being at infancy, there is hardly any systematic data on civic groups. What precious little information there is has been compiled under the auspices of foreign institutions. One such data source was produced by Tokyo's Japan Center for International Exchange in cooperation with the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore (Yamamoto, 1995). This study canvassed fifteen Asia Pacific countries to trace the trends in the development of NGOs, think tanks, and philanthropic organizations. The Korean data were prepared by the Institute of East and West Studies at Yonsei University. The following is a summary of the reports on Korea by the Yonsei team.
Korea's NGOs
According to Hye-Kyung Lee (1995) who analyzed the NGO movements in Korea, NGO activities were virtually nonexistent until the early 1960s. A small number of them active in the early period of nation-building were largely service-oriented, playing welfare functions or implementing development projects for the poor. And they were mostly established and supported by foreign aid. In the subsequent years, until the Democratization Struggle of 1987, civic movements were discouraged and oppressed in the name of national security by the authoritarian regime. Nevertheless, economic growth stimulated the birth of civic groups, which could be classified into two categories: advocacy-oriented activities to promote social justice, democracy, and human rights; and education- and service-oriented groups. While those in the second group were either supported or left to operate on their own by the government, the first group was branded as anti-government and severely repressed.
Beginning in the 1980s, the government also sought to regulate NGOs. All NGOs were expected to register with the relevant ministries either as part of the requirement for establishment or for the recognition as a public entity. As the number of registered NGOs grew, the ministries felt the need for an intermediary body to control the NGOs. A number of quasi-governmental organizations were created for this purpose including the Korea Women's Development Institute (KWDI), the Korea Institute for Consumer Protection (KICP), and the National Institute for Environmental Research (NIER). These institutes were to perform the dual function of research and direct services to the community in the issue areas of concern. In the early years, they did not contribute to the organization of NGO activities, however, because those NGOs with anti-government bents were reluctant to come under governmental control.
The summer of 1987 was a watershed in Korea's NGO activities, with
the emergence of increasingly effective and sophisticated civic groups led by the younger generation emphasizing progressive advocacy functions, including efforts to broaden public debate and participation in the formulation of public policy, safeguard or expand the domain of human rights, and safeguard public resources, such as the environment, against the pressures of economic growth. A few very effective NGOs established after 1987 and covered in this survey are as follows: the Citizens'Coalition for Economic Justice, established in 1989 by five hundred founding members, as a citizens'organization to express opinions on general policy issues with a broad focus on economic justice; Korea Women's Association for Democracy and Sisterhood, established in 1987 with a new progressive feminist approach to women's issues; the Korea Action Federation for Environment [Korea Federation for Environmental Movement], established in 1994 by the former opposition movement leaders who view the environmental issue as one related to more fundamental questions of people's right to life and the anti-nuclear and anti-chaebol movements (Lee, 1995:163).
In addition, it should be noted that this upsurge in NGO movements was received by the public, scholarly, and business communities as a contributing factor to the growth of civil society, which has been long overdue. As many in the top positions of the government had at times been active in the advocacy- or service-oriented NGOs, it may be cautiously predicted that the government's decision-making would reflect input from the NGOs.
Research Institutions
In the survey of Korea's research institutions mostly in social sciences, Jung (1995) reports the existence of three types: government-sponsored institutes, corporate research organs, and university-affiliated entities. Of these, government-supported research institutes are most secure financially and often exercise strong influence in policymaking. While almost all government ministries have at least one research arm, some are more prominent than others. For instance, the Korea Development Institute was established in 1971 and has since been closely involved in the government's economic planning. In external relations, the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security has been supplying the data and policy recommendations to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the last three decades. As to the inter-Korean relations, research activities have been consolidated under the Korea Institute for National Unification.
Despite the financial security and the direct pipeline into the government, there is doubt whether these organizations could serve as an intermediary between the public and the government. It is largely because these institutes are run more like a bureaucracy than a think tank. As such, their products tend to lack creativity and present arguments supporting the governmental position.
Corporate think tanks also have a similar problem of representativeness. Chaebols fund and maintain these research units for their self-interest, not necessarily to promote public interest or discuss public policy agenda. While it is true that their products usually have higher quality than those of the government-sponsored organizations, they fall short in promoting public goods.
In contrast, university-affiliated think tanks can conduct, theoretically at least, independent research not encumbered by the wishes of the government or private firms. It is possible for them to pursue research programs designed to protect the interest of the society as a whole. Unfortunately, many of them lack financial, and thus human and technical, resources. Since the funding from the government or corporations tend to have strings attached, it would be desirable for these university-affiliated institutes to be supported by private philanthropic foundations. Until the day when these university think tanks become active, the role of research institutes as a filter of public interest will have to remain quite limited.
Corporate Foundations
Then what is the current situation of nonprofit foundations in Korea? According to Park (1995) who undertook the survey, there exist more than four thousand of them, which can be classified by two factors- the primary contributor and the main activities. The first factor divides foundations into two groups- non-corporate foundations created by the contributions of individuals and corporate foundations established by the contributions of corporations or their owners. Classified by the second factor of activities, foundations can be divided into religious, educational, scholarship-giving, medical, and social service foundations. Although these five categories have been specified by the government and each foundation may designate itself with only one of them, they are allowed to be involved in other activities.
There is no question that corporate foundations are and will remain the mainstream of nonprofit foundations in Korea, considering the rapid growth in their number and size as well as the citizens'expectation on them to return what they have earned back to the society. It should be mentioned that the tax codes on inheritance have a lot to do with the growth of corporate foundations. In effect, some foundations are the largest shareholder of major corporations, while the heir of the founder maintains control of the foundations. Setting aside the issue of creative tax management, these foundations do support research in the areas of public interest, and that's what should matter most. The specific areas of support may vary depending on the corporation's areas of specialization, and this will assure diversity in the corporate-supported research.
As seen in the three indicators of NGOs, think tanks, and philanthropic foundations, Korea's move to a civil society began from the 1980s. Even during such a short time span, the Koreans have made a remarkable progress. In a sense, their passage to a civil society had been arbitrarily blocked by a succession of authoritarian regimes. Now that the lid is off, Koreans may witness an exponential growth toward a mature civil society.
Turning to the central question of this paper, how would this rapid growth in civil society affect Korea's policymaking, especially in foreign relations? The development of civil society being such a recent phenomenon, its linkage with policymaking has not been apparent and hence lacks a systematic research. That's why an exploratory study like this needs to be undertaken to lay the first stepping stone to a more full-fledged analysis. We are, of course, certain that the linkage is there and strengthening at a fast pace. Though anecdotal in nature, just one event should suffice to illustrate the coming relationship between the growth of civil society and the government's policymaking.
In early March 1998, new President Kim Dae-jung was devoting a good part of his attention to cabinet level appointments. Not to repeat his predecessor's mistake of selecting ministers without public scrutiny, he floated.. the names of potential candidates in the media. In no time, various civic groups came up with detailed evaluations of each candidate and even went one step further by producing a list of those they would not favor. The Citizens'Coalition for Economic Justice was especially active in this media screening of the candidates for ministerial posts; the dossiers it prepared contained materials bordering on the intrusion of privacy. And many opposed by the civic groups were not selected by Kim Dae-jung regardless of their expertise in their fields. As the ministers are the primary architects of policies, that the civic groups have exercised de facto veto power at the stage of appointment means a great deal. In a sense, this may be more important than the groups'attempts to influence individual policies. By forcing the president not to choose the candidates they do not endorse, the civic groups are poised to influence the policymaking process from the starting point. What a change compared to the authoritarian era in which the president had it his way, especially in foreign policymaking.
Though this event is a harbinger of what may lie ahead- and because it is believed to be the genuine beginning of a new trend- we need to embark on a more systematic research, or at least construct an analytical framework. As part of this endeavor, we want to start from the broad question of the relationship between public opinion and foreign policy.
III. Public Opinion And Foreign Policy In Korea
It is clear that the systematic research on public opinion and foreign policy in Korea has yet to begin. Before deploring the poor state of scholarship, however, we need to view the Korean case from a comparative perspective, especially employing the design of maximum difference. The United States could be such a benchmark for two reasons- the difference in the level of democratization and that in the history of public opinion research. Regarding the former, no explanation is necessary except that Korea crossed the threshold of democratic transition in the late 1980s. As to the latter, however, the differences between the two countries may not be as severe as in the former.
It is true that the U.S. has a long tradition of public opinion research. The Gallup poll was established in 1936 and the prestigious Public Opinion Quarterly two years thereafter. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the post-World War II "Almond-Lippmann consensus " had prevailed until about the middle of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. A result of extensive research during the first two decade following the end of the Second World War, this consensus view centered on three major propositions about public opinion and foreign policy:
At the end of the day, however, public opinion has a very limited impact on the conduct of foreign policy (Holsti, 1992:442).
The Vietnam War and its aftermath stimulated much research activity, which in large part challenged each of these propositions. 1 Greatly contributing to this effort was the launching of systematic surveys by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in 1974. These quadrennial surveys have since continued, and are considered most authoritative in the study of relationship between public opinion and American foreign policy, serving as a data source for much scholarly work on the subject (Rielly, 1995).
That Americans recognized the importance of public opinion in foreign policymaking only from about the late 1960s should reveal a lot to Koreans. After all, the U.S. started its democratic governance over two centuries ago and its foreign policies have defined the international system since 1945. In contrast, Korea's democracy is in a nascent stage and its foreign policies have for long lacked autonomy due to its dependence on major powers in both military security and economic affairs. Put differently, not only did Seoul's authoritarian regimes conduct foreign policy with little citizen input, but also they did not have much maneuvering room in the making of foreign policies. 2 Consequently, the late 1980s marked the opening of a new era for Korea in the relationship between public opinion and foreign policy.
What will the future hold for Korea in foreign policymaking regarding the input from citizens? Will there be the advantage of a latecomer? Or will Koreans also have to go through the long learning process in which the liberals and realists will constantly engage each other in fierce debates? Definitely, there are liberal and realist schools of thought in Korea- the former championing the accountability of the state to the public in foreign policymaking, especially regarding its war-making proclivities, while the latter warning the public's irresponsible mood swings as they may hinder the state's coherent pursuit of national interest. Given the lack of research, no meaningful answer can be rendered to this question at this time. Nevertheless, it is possible to make a few observations, albeit sketchy, based on some recent surveys conducted by Korea Gallup for various organizations- ranging from U.S. Information Agency to Korea's Ministry of Information and to such TV networks as Korea's MBC and Japan's NHK. 3 The issue areas selected here for the purpose of illustration are Korea-U.S. relations, Korea-Japan relations, and the role of major powers for the peace and unification of Korea. For the first two, data were available for two or more time points, while the third was chosen for its interesting implications.
Our foremost objective in examining these three sets of data is a simple one: whether the results of public opinion polls make sense or not. There is insufficient data- at least not available to us yet- to enable a rigorous test of consistency or volatility in public opinion, let alone its impact on foreign policy. What we hope to check is whether polls would make sense to policymakers. It is a very modest test of if foreign policymakers would consider them in decision-making process or ignore them as irrelevant. As we have nothing beyond informal conversations with top foreign policymakers, even this test is based upon our educated guess. With this caveat, let us begin with the first topic of Korea-U.S. relations.
In Korea's external relations, no country weighs more heavily than the U.S. Unlike other former and present allies of the U.S., Seoul has remained extremely amicable to Washington. Undeniably, there had been occasional outbursts of anti-Americanism, especially during the authoritarian era: the radicals and progressive intellectuals believed that the U.S. was, for geo-strategic reasons, supporting the military regimes which violated human rights. Now that the Cold War is over and Korea is undertaking democratic reforms, is there any prospect of change in the bilateral relationship? Not necessarily. If anything, we believe that the relationship will become even more cooperative. Most important of all, there will be no criticism of Washington propping up an authoritarian regime in Seoul, which had been the nucleus of anti-American sentiments in Korea. Hence, the two countries can freely cultivate each other for the promotion of common interests.
Besides the usual synergy originating from a mutually beneficial trading relationship, Korea and the U.S. would need each other now more than ever before. Seoul requires America's presence on the peninsula as the guarantor of peace. Even after the eventual unification of Korea, the Koreans would welcome the continued deployment of U.S. troops as a deterrent against the new and larger adversaries in Northeast Asia. Of the four surrounding powers, the U.S. could best serve this purpose for it evidently does not have a territorial ambition in Asia. From Washington's perspective, it is critical to maintain a foothold in the Asian continent to signify its intention to remain an Asian power. And which country welcomes the U.S. more than Korea? 4 Compared to Korea for which American soldiers had shed blood, for example, Japan is the country against which the U.S. had fought a bloody war and, some argue, is currently fighting an economic war.
In this context, the data contained in Table 1 appear quite suggestive. The one-year span of September 1993 to September 1994 saw some radical ups and downs in Korea-U.S. relations. It was the peak of crisis caused by Pyongyang's refusal to subject its suspected nuclear weapons sites to international inspection. Washington led the negotiation with Pyongyang, and in the spring of 1994 there was a serious discussion in the Pentagon about the possible air strike against the Yongbyon area, which had North Korea's nuclear complex. Seoul was deeply concerned with the issue not only because Pyongyang's nuclear weapons would pose a vital threat to the south but also because it felt left out in the bilateral bargaining between Pyongyang and Washington. South Koreans were justifiably bitter about Washington's direct dealing with Pyongyang. They argued that the U.S. paid only marginal attention to them in the name of policy coordination, which often meant little more than the presentation of preset positions and briefings about results of the talk. 5
Table 1. Korea-U.S. Relations
Question: regardless of your personal opinion about the U.S., what do you think is the current state of relationship between Korea and the U.S.?
(Source: Korea Gallup; a stratified random sample of 1,000, age 18 and older, personal interviews, error margin of plus-minus 3.1% at 95% confidence level)
| Sep. 1993 | Sep. 1994 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Very good | 9.0 | 4.6 | ||
| Moderately good | 67.1 | 59.5 | ||
| Moderately bad | 17.2 | 32.2 | ||
| Very bad | 1.4 | 1.9 | ||
| Don't know/ no answer |
5.4 | 1.7 |
Question: Do you think Korea should make relations with the U.S. more intimate, less intimate, or as is?
(Source: Korea Gallup; a stratified random sample of 2,000, age 20 and older, personal interviews, error margin of plus-minus 2.2% at 95% confidence level)
| Jan. 1991 | ||
|---|---|---|
| More intimate | 26.3 | |
| As is | 50.7 | |
| Less intimate | 19.3 | |
| Don't know/ No answer |
3.7 |
Unit=percentage
Given this background, we cannot but be amazed by the strength of the confidence Koreans expressed in Americans. Even while going through probably the worst period in the Seoul-Washington alliance, the drop in the pro-American sentiment was small. In September 1993, the combined category of 'very and moderately good'assessment of the state of the bilateral relationship held 76.1 percent of the respondents. One year thereafter, the same category had 64.1 percent- a drop of only 14 percent. Although there was a corresponding increase in the 'moderately bad'assessment from 17.2 to 32.2 percent, this degree of mood swing should be judged miniscule considering the genuine sense of rejection many Koreans felt about the U.S. during this period. Despite what the intellectuals kept writing in newspapers about Washington's hegemonic style of dealing with the two Koreas, the South Korean public must not have lost the basic trust in the U.S. Though the data presented in the bottom half of Table 1 predates the nuclear weapons crisis, it shows that Koreans are quite pleased with the current state of relationship with the U.S.
The Seoul government's response to Washington's handling of the nuclear issue received sharp criticisms from left and right. Believing in the power of the stick, hard-line conservatives argued that the government was impotent in influencing the U.S. that was too accommodating to Pyongyang's demands. In contrast, the liberals demanded the separation of politics and economics so that "sunshine, not the wind would entice the north to take off the cloak of nuclear weapons. "While dodging punches from both sides, the Seoul government muddled through, and the survey results like those in Table 1 might have contributed to its rather inactive approach.
Compared with the U.S.-Korea relations, Koreans have a rather different attitude toward Japan. As shown in Table 2, the level of amity is much lower than toward the U.S. and fluctuates widely. The data covers three time points- June 1991, August 1992, and May 1993. Of the three, the first and third may be considered normal, because 1992 was the year when the bilateral relationship had a dramatic tumble due to the issue of comfort women, the details of which will be discussed in the next section. Setting aside the 1992 data, the respondents who thought the relationship between Korea and Japan was 'goodí- combining the two categories of 'very good'and 'moderately goodí- constituted about 40 percents. In addition, more than half of those surveyed felt that the relationship was 'badí- 'moderately'or 'very.' Indeed, these data show that the U.S. and Japan are perceived differently by the Korean public.
Table 2.Korea- Japan Relations
Question: What do you think is the state of the relationship between Korea and Japan?
(Source: Korea Gallup; for 1991, a stratified random sample of 1,000, age 20 and older, personal interviews, error margin of plus-minus 3.1% at 95% confidence level; for 1992, a stratified random sample of 1,000, age 20 and older, phone interviews, error margin of plus-minus 3.1% at 95% confidence level; for 1993, a stratifies random sample of 1,500, age 20 and older, personal interviews, error margin of plus-minus 2.5% at 95% confidence level)
| June 1991 | Aug. 1992 | May 1993 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Very good | 1.6 | 1.9 | 1.0 | ||
| Moderately good | 40.1 | 19.0 | 38.0 | ||
| Moderately bad | 51.2 | 63.2 | 47.9 | ||
| Very bad | 3.1 | 13.7 | 4.8 | ||
| Don't know/ no answer |
4.0 | 2.3 | 8.4 |
Question: Do you think Korea should strengthen its relationship with Japan, weaken it, or leave it as it is?
(Source: Korea Gallup; a stratified random sample of 1,000, age 20 and older, phone interviews, error margin of plus-minus 3.1% at 95% confidence level)
| Aug. 1992 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Strengthen | 70.0 | |
| As is | 14.6 | |
| Weaken | 12.1 | |
| Don't know/ No answer |
3.3 |
Unit=percentage
While the reasons underlying such a negative perception need to be carefully scrutinized, however, the second question in Table 2 suggests that the 'bad'assessment may not necessarily imply that Koreans are hostile to Japan and the bilateral relationship would deteriorate. For evidence, we can point to the 70 percent of the respondents who said they were in favor of strengthening Korea's relationship with Japan. Only 14.6 percent were content with the status quo while 12.1 percent favored the weakening of the relationship.
This overall negative attitude must have given the government a big "elbow room" in its diplomacy toward Japan. Though there is no available survey of the leaders, our conjecture is that they would be more favorably disposed to Japan than the public. And such a gap between the elite and public should allow the government to make aggressive demands to Japan on a wide range of issues including technology transfer, territorial water boundaries, and the 'rectification of history.' The Seoul government's foreign policy behavior to Tokyo tends to support this observation.
Turning to the third issue of which major powers would have determining influence on Korea's peace and unification, the survey data seem to confirm what we have long supposed. The first question in Table 3 is about the role of the four surrounding powers in the maintenance of peace on the Korean peninsula. The U.S. came out on the top but only with a 2.9-percent margin over China. The distant third was Japan with 14.5 percent- less than half of the U.S. or China. Russia was identified as the most influential country by just 8.1 percent of the respondents. Considering the date of the survey, September 1992, the results make an intuitive sense; with Russia in disarray and Japan still content with the status of economic giant, China began to loom large as a variable in the stability of the peninsula. Seoul's inordinate attention paid to Beijing tends to go along the grain of this popular perception.
Table 3. Influences of Major Powers on Korea's Peace and Unification
Question: Among the four major powers surrounding the Korean Peninsula- the U.S., Japan, Russia, and China- which do you think will be most influential in the consolidation of peace on the peninsula?
(Source: Korea Gallup; a stratified random sample of 788, age 20 and older, phone interviews, error margin of plus-minus 3.5% at 95% confidence level)
| Sep. 1992 | ||
|---|---|---|
| U.S | 33.2 | |
| China | 30.3 | |
| Japan | 14.5 | |
| Russia | 8.1 | |
| Don't know/ No answer |
13.8 |
| Jan. 1993 | ||
|---|---|---|
| China | 44.0 | |
| U.S. | 20.7 | |
| Russia | 15.9 | |
| Japan | 8.1 | |
| Other | 0.9 | |
| Don't know/ No answer |
10.2 |
Unit=percentage
When asked the question of which country should be courted to facilitate Korea's unification, the responses reported in the bottom half of Table 3 show an extremely revealing result. China topped the list with 44 percent, while the U.S. with only 20.7 percent. Russia was the third with 15.9 and Japan the last with a dismal 8.1 percent. This finding confirms the widely held belief that, among the four surrounding powers, Beijing would be most reluctant to see a unified Korea. The loss of the North Korean buffer would be intolerable to China as it is struggling to become a regional hegemon. But the second place given to the U.S. should not necessarily be interpreted as Washington's objection to the Korean unification. 6 If anything, it is presumed that the U.S. may be least reluctant to Korea's unification. Consequently, this high finish should be a reflection of the constructive role Washington is expected to play in any type of unification.
Combine these two observations and we can synthesize a policy option for the Seoul government. In order to consolidate peace on the peninsula, it is critical to please both Washington and Beijing. To facilitate the unification, however, it is imperative to persuade Beijing that the unified Korea would remain friendly to China. As to which one to emphasize more, Seoul has apparently put its highest priority on the maintenance of peace and stability. Whereas unification is an emotional subject that no administration would dare neglect, the reality is that no amount of policy planning would bring it about as long as the two Koreas remain as separate and viable entities on the peninsula. Thus Korea's foreign policy line has been "the U.S. first and China second" in security matters, and this seems to be consistent with the public sentiment.
Now that we have made some general, albeit not rigorous, observations about the impact of public opinion on foreign policy, we would like to complement them by discussing the recent case of comfort women that not only aroused the public's interest and rancor but also pitted the government against many civic groups. This case provides a clear illustration that the citizens have influenced the government to change its foreign policy toward Japan.
V. The Case Of Comfort Women
When the Tokyo government made a statement in June 1990 denying its involvement in the massive sexual slavery committed by the Japanese military during World War II, the entire Asian continent went up in the public outburst of anger. With over 200,000 Koreans drafted as comfort women, of whom 157 are registered survivors, the Koreans were especially enraged by Japan's denial. Public protests by various groups continued, and the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (hereafter Council) was formed on November 16, 1990 as an umbrella organization for 19 civic groups. Currently holding 24 member groups, the Council has a wide base of popular support and has devoted itself to sensitizing the world about the wartime atrocity of the Japanese military. The Council has been extremely active in pressuring and lobbying the governments of Tokyo and Seoul, raising the global consciousness mainly through the United Nations, promoting solidarity with women's organizations in Asia including Japan, and providing welfare support for the surviving members.
By analyzing the Council's activities, the Korean government's response to the issue, and the Council's impact on Seoul's policymaking, we hope to show that the NGOs can and do make the difference in foreign policies.
From the outset, the Korean government had been quite passive in its handling of the issue. Its posture was typically bureaucratic- hands-off as if the plight of the comfort women were somebody else's. When the public discontent was escalating, especially in the eve of January 1992 visit to Korea by Japan's Prime Minister Miyazawa, the Seoul government adopted the logic of "fact-finding first and discussion of reparation thereafter. " The result was a request for fact-finding made to the Japanese government in December 1991. In addition, the Seoul government established a working-level task force on comfort women in January 1991, which later produced an interim report on their status under Japanese imperialism.
The Kim Young-sam administration (1993-1998) was somewhat complacent to Japan's argument that the 1965 normalization of diplomatic relations and the attendant settlement of reparation should be construed as having solved the issue of comfort women. Even when Seoul's Ministry of Justice had recommended that the comfort women issue was not part of the 1965 settlement, and therefore a re-negotiation is warranted, it was silenced by opposition from the more powerful Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1993, Kim Young-sam went one step further by declaring that the Korean government would render assistance to the surviving comfort women and not demand material reparation from the Japanese government. This was immediately welcomed by Japan's Cabinet Minister as Korea's relinquishment of demand for reparation. He also interpreted it as Seoul's recognition that the 1965 settlement would cover the question of comfort women. He did promise, however, to undertake an investigation into the issue and make an appropriate gesture of apology.
In effect, the Seoul government did not go beyond the request to Japan for fact-finding by saying that the individuals'right to claim reparation from Japan is not an issue that the government should get involved in. But Korea did enact a special law under which some financial support has since been provided to the surviving women. Furthermore, the Korean government has been fully supportive of the civic organizations that are promoting the interest of comfort women.
The Council objected to such a stance by the Seoul government for three reasons. First, it argued that Kim's ambition to gain moral superiority over Japan by not seeking material reparation was wrong because it would weaken the case against Japan's wartime brutality. Second, the Seoul government had not launched its own fact-finding efforts while waiting for Japan to complete its. Third, the Korean government was not prosecuting as war criminals those Koreans who had assisted Japan's drafting of comfort women.
Then came a report by the International Committee of Jurists in 1994 which stated in essence that the 1965 treaty between Korea and Japan dealt with the reparation at the governmental level only, and hence did not include claims against damages suffered by individuals. The report boosted the morale of the Koreans who had believed that it was nonsensical to include the comfort women in the 1965 settlement for the issue did not arise until decades after the treaty was signed. Adding fuel to the fire, 1996 saw another international opinion against Japan expressed in a special report of the UN Human Rights Commission on the problems of sexual slavery during the war. The report concluded that neither the San Francisco Peace Treaty nor any bilateral treaties dealt with the reparations demanded by sexual slaves, and therefore the Japanese government was still liable for violating the international laws of human rights.
The UN report noted that the Japanese government was instrumental in the creation of a non-governmental fund to support the surviving comfort women, but the civic groups in Korea criticized it on grounds that such a fund was nothing but an attempt by the Japanese government to bribe the damaged party while escaping its formal responsibility. Led by the Council, Korea's civic groups have repeatedly asked the Seoul government to officially ask the Japanese government to acknowledge responsibility, offer a public apology, and provide appropriate financial retribution. These groups have also pleaded the UN to intervene via the International Court of Justice or the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
The fund created by Japan rubbed the raw nerve of the Koreans. Named the National Fund for Women for Asian Peace, it was launched in July 1995 under the banner of "reflecting on the past history through grass roots fundraising. " Today the original goal appears to have diminished while the organization has become a source of irritation for the surviving comfort women. As if the Japanese had little intention to reflect on, let alone repent, their past, the fund raising was a failure, meeting only one-third of the 900 million yen target. The Tokyo government had to circulate an official memo to civil servants and the industries before raising an additional 200 million yen. 7
That the fund had failed to reach its intended target was a small failure. The big failure was that it had turned out to be an organization that brought further suffering to the survivors. In June 1996, for example, some forty Filipino comfort women made a resolution not to accept any money from the fund but ask a formal apology from the Japanese government. When one old and poverty-stricken member of the group, Maria Henson- they are all old and poor- decided to take the money "to feed her grandchildren better," she became a target of ostracization. During the war, she had been brutalized by Japanese soldiers; now she is branded as a traitor by her own countrymen.
In August 1996, the fund's staff visited Korea and amidst public protest met with ten comfort women, offering them 2 million yen each; some did take the money. The fund's approach to comfort women on an individual basis finally moved the Seoul government to take a firmer stance. Citing the UN report, it issued a strong demand to Japan at a UN human rights subcommittee meeting held in Geneva on August 18, 1997 that Tokyo take appropriate measures acceptable to the victims. Seoul's representative at the meeting also expressed dissatisfaction with Tokyo's claim that the fund was the only solution to the problem.
While the administration was turning to a hard-line position, the National Assembly- Korea's legislature- was also moving swiftly to deny entry visa to the Japanese war criminals implicated in comfort women and the biological experimentation of prisoners. In 1998, the Seoul government took yet another step forward by exploring the option of compensating the comfort women with its own budget first, then asking reparation from Tokyo. If realized, this policy will ease the pains of these aging women so that they will be less susceptible to Japan's attempt to buy its way out.
While following the chronological development of the three-way interactions among the Council and the two governments, we were able to delineate a pattern in which the Seoul government tended to react only after the Council and the public raised the issue and set the agenda. For the government saddled with such "larger headaches " as trade imbalance and fisheries dispute, perhaps the issue of comfort women might have been low in priority, not worth starting another fight against Japan. As such, the government might have waited for the public to lead before going full steam ahead. At any rate, this was unquestionably a case of the civic groups influencing Seoul's foreign policymaking.
V. Conclusion
Our exploratory study suggests that there are strong signs of civil society growing in Korea. Since the late 1980s, voluntary organizations have mushroomed with the professed goal of promoting public interests. The Korean public seems to be well-informed in foreign relations, and its attitude is hardly volatile. There also appears to be a definite link between public opinion and foreign policy as shown in not only survey results but also the case analysis of the protest surrounding the issue of comfort women. Not uncovered in our analysis, however, is the specific causal mechanism that connects the growth of civil society with the government's foreign policymaking.
What we have established, albeit with sketch evidence, is that the Seoul government has grown sensitive to public opinion and the input from various civic groups. It may be interpreted as a sign of changing times from authoritarianism to democracy. But it is also possible to read this differently. Having grown accustomed to the manipulation of public opinion, some leaders in the new government may still be trying to use foreign policy as a tool of domestic politics.
In a maturing civil society, such a manipulation would become more difficult. For instance, increasing decentralization is likely to pressure the governments at various levels to develop a symbiotic relationship with voluntary organizations for information-sharing and the mobilization of support. As these organizations grow in power, they would become a sounding board for policies; without their approval new policies may not be accepted by the people. Moreover, it will be inevitable that the relations between the government and civic groups improve in the post-Cold War period. What might have been considered subversive movements would be either seen less as dangerous elements or replaced by more moderate social action groups. Lastly, the growing incidence of people-to-people diplomacy will help internationalize the civic groups, which in turn would have a more democratizing impact on the government's policymaking.
The agenda for future research hence becomes self-evident. With more in-depth studies of the relationship between the civil society and foreign policymaking community, we need to build a theoretical model of who is influenced by whom and in what way. It may be possible that the civic groups represent the underlying social cleavages and thus affect coalition formation in the decision-making community (Risse-Kappen, 1991). If so, it will be necessary to identify these cleavages and the players in the politics of coalition building. On the other hand, given the high level of socio-cultural homogeneity, there may be a uniquely Korean mechanism through which the two communities influence each other. Should that be the case, a contextual model would have to constructed with an eye to gleaning the components that could be made applicable to the cases similar to Korea. No matter how it turns out, the future holds an immense challenge to the study of civil society and foreign policymaking in Korea.
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Notes
Note 1: For the most comprehensive work challenging the Almond-Lippmann thesis, see Page and Shapiro (1988, 1992). Back.
Note 2: Even the much-touted Nordpolitik (northward diplomacy) of Roh Tae-woo in the late 1980s was made possible by the changing international environment, and more importantly, by the tacit approval of the U.S. that was primarily interested in the maintenance of stability on the Korean peninsula. Even without Roh's initiative, Seoul's rapprochement with Moscow and Beijing would have come; all he did was to accelerate the process. And Korea had to pay for those diplomatic ties, the most controversial of which was the 3.5 billion dollar soft loan to the former Soviet Union. The debt is still pending, though Seoul has been receiving Russia's military equipment as part of the repayment. Back.
Note 3: Due to high costs of national surveys, very few research institutes have been able to commission the Gallup organization. Some do conduct their own surveys, the most notable of which is the Institute of Social Sciences at Seoul National University. Back.
Note 4: Even North Korea had kept sending signals to the U.S. that it would not oppose the continued presence of American troops on the Korean peninsula. It should be noted that these statements were made before the 1994 Agreed Framework was signed between the U.S. and North Korea to settle the issue of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons development. From North Korea's standpoint, U.S. troops may be seen to play the role of "dual deterrenceí in which they prevent each Korea from starting an act of aggression. Back.
Note 5: For a fuller discussion of the conflict and cooperation in the triangular relationship among the U.S. and the two Koreas, see Park (1998). Back.
Note 6: Robert A. Scalapino, a world-renowned Korea watcher, is the leader in this line of thinking. Source: private conversation held in March 1997. Back.
Note 7: After receiving the government circular, one member of the Self-Defense Force wrote in the op-ed section of a newspaper questioning why he had to make a contribution. A former Minister of Justice even stated that the comfort women engaged in commercial sexual activities. Back.
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