JOURNAL

T H E I N T E R N AT I O N A L

of

Interdisciplinary

SOCIAL SCIENCES
Volume 6, Issue 10

Soft Power and Bargaining Leverage on the Korean Peninsula

Benedict Edward DeDominicis

www.SocialSciences-Journal.com

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY SOCIAL SCIENCES http://www.SocialSciences-Journal.com First published in 2012 in Champaign, Illinois, USA by Common Ground Publishing LLC www.CommonGroundPublishing.com ISSN: 1833-1882 2012 (individual papers), the author(s) 2012 (selection and editorial matter) Common Ground All rights reserved. Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the applicable copyright legislation, no part of this work may be reproduced by any process without written permission from the publisher. For permissions and other inquiries, please contact <cg-support@commongroundpublishing.com>. THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY SOCIAL SCIENCES is peer-reviewed, supported by rigorous processes of criterion-referenced article ranking and qualitative commentary, ensuring that only intellectual work of the greatest substance and highest significance is published. Typeset in Common Ground Markup Language using CGPublisher multichannel typesetting system http://www.commongroundpublishing.com/software/

Soft Power and Bargaining Leverage on the Korean Peninsula

Benedict Edward DeDominicis, The Catholic University of Korea, South Korea
Abstract: The Republic of Korea (ROK) has a significant overall diplomatic bargaining leverage advantage in relation to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) in shaping international behavior to support or acquiesce to the ROK assuming sole representational legitimacy for the broader Korean nation. Aside from the ROKs direct diplomatic bargaining leverage advantages towards the DPRK, the ROKs indirect leverage over the DPRK is enhanced through the ROKs power leverage in its international diplomatic interaction with the United States and the rest of the international community. Perceived influence capability over third countries is only one bargaining lever for comprehending DPRK-ROK interaction, but the source of the ROKs ability to influence these third countries is significantly soft-power based. Soft powers role may be understood in terms of public opinion, legitimacy and nationalism in affecting relevant public opinion constituencies both within the Koreas and within these third countries. South Koreas development has made it a national growth model for the rest of the post Cold War world. Its international political influence and national economic prosperity derives partly from the Cold War political bifurcation of the Korean nation, which made the South Korean ROK state comparatively open to external cultural, economic and political influences. North Koreas development of nuclear weapons is comprehendible as representing a compensatory bargaining leverage response. Keywords: Soft Power, Hard Power, Smart Power, North Korea, DPRK, South Korea, ROK, United States, Nationalism, Legitimacy, Public Opinion, Bargaining, Leverage, Diplomacy, International Relations, Cold War, Hegemony, Christian, China, Russia, Neoliberal Institutional

Introduction

CCORDING TO NYE (e.g. 2007), soft power in the form of legitimacy can greatly reduce the resource and operational costs of international intervention in regional disputes, civil wars, and failed states. If possible, attracting an authoritarian regime to democratize is more effective as part of a conflict resolution formula than intervening militarily to coerce a state to become democratic. Due to increasing global awareness of economic and political interdependency, soft powers role will continue to grow relative to hard power in the era of globalization and the information revolution. International politics has increasingly become a contest of competitive demonstration of political capacity as perceived by elites and publics relative to military capabilities. As more people increasingly have access to information technology, the ability to share information and to shape the political opinion of targeted publics by appearing legitimate and credible becomes a continuously increasing source of attraction and power. As information about apparent

The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Volume 6, Issue 10, 2012, http://www.SocialSciences-Journal.com, ISSN 1833-1882
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national development successes are shared, common outlooks and approaches are promoted.1 Creating political contextual conditions so as to appear to be on the right side of national collective development aspirations consequently improves the ability of the US to deal with world security challenges. Inclusion of legitimacy and public opinion as components of soft power diplomatic bargaining leverage in dyadic interaction requires a theoretical framework for conceptualizing nationalism. Soft power is slower and more cumbersome to manipulate than hard power since acquisition of soft power through legitimacy is more dependent upon the responses and actions of other political actors, including individual-level (e.g. perceptions among the citizenry), state-level (e.g. group constituency interests) and international-level variables (e.g. approval by other state governments and international organizations). As the failure of US intervention in Southeast Asia illustrated, effective political strategic planning in use of force and other forms of hard power also requires a policy relevant understanding of the dynamic behavioral parameters of public opinion, legitimacy and nationalism within the target national community as well as in the community of the initiating government.2

ROK vs. DPRK Competitive International Diplomacy: Hard and Soft Power as Bargaining Leverage
Cottam and Gallucci (1978) provide a comprehensive framework checklist for disaggregating and analyzing bargaining leverage in dyadic interaction (illustrated below).3

Joseph S. Nye, Jr. The Place of Soft Power in State-Based Conflict Management, Leashing the Dogs of War. eds. Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Hall, (Washington: United States of Institute of Peace, 2007), 39496. 2 Demetri Sevastopulo, Gates wants action on todays wars, Financial Times (5 December 2008), reports that the G.W. Bush Administrations Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, would continue in this role into the new Obama Administration, advocating for the promotion of US soft power including through the subordination of kinetic operations to achieving the good governance objectives necessary to undermine what he sees as the sources of discontent that support terrorist activity. 3 Cottam, Richard and Gerard Gallucci, The Rehabilitation of Power in International Relations: A Working Paper, (Pittsburgh: University Center for International Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 1978), 9.

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Table 1: A List of Diplomatic Bargaining Levers that is All-inclusive Bargaining Base Passive (tacit bargaining) levers 1. Perceived public attitudes 2. Perceived possible great power involvement. 3. Awareness of interdependence. 4. Perceived long term power alterations. 5. Perceived economic/and/or political stability. 6. Perceived irrationality of leaders. 7. Perceived adverse effect on friendship. 8. Perceived likelihood of accidental war. *Cottam and Gallucci, 4849. Passive and active levers roughly correspond with each other. Passive levers are strong diplomatic instruments, but their magnitude changes relatively slowly and they may be considered constants in this diplomatic case analysis. Active levers are variable, e.g. offer more or less economic aid. The disaggregation of diplomatic leverage into forms of active and passive levers provides a framework for clarifying the interactive nature and role of soft as well as hard power in international diplomatic bargaining. The application of soft power crosses active and passive leverage categories. The power of attraction works within a diplomatic context of pan-Korean nationalist public opinion sentiments as well as international appeal as a national development model. This power of attraction is most appropriately understood through analysis of its application concomitantly with other sources of diplomatic bargaining leverage. They include the traditional hard power leverage of threat and use of deadly force as well as direct economic aid incentives. The leverages are not all equally salient in any given diplomatic negotiation. Application of particular leverage in diplomatic bargaining may impact on the salience and intensity of political context trends that determine the relative effectiveness of other levers, e.g. a military air strike may generate a nationalist attitudinal backlash strengthening the domestic political stability of the target regime for a time. Active levers: 1. Perceived ability to give or withhold aid. 2. Perceived ability to influence the actions of a third country. 3. Perceived ability to use force. 4. Perceived trade opportunities. 5. Perceived ability to deal with domestic political dissatisfaction. 6. Perceived transnational appeal of ideology. 7. Perceived willingness to alter relationship type.

Passive Levers
1) Perceived public attitudes: i.e. relative intensity, salience, and orientation of pan-Korean nationalist attitudes in each target polity to which diplomatic bargainers appeal to attempt to generate public opinion pressure to sway the other. Interestingly, indications are that the strength of pan-Korean attitudes is such that resentment towards the US exists particularly among younger generations who do not remember the war and deprivation of the 1950s. They manifested themselves in the form of significant doubts that North Korea was respons-

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ible for the March 2010 sinking of the ROKs Cheonan warship, to the exasperation of the South Korean government.4 At least until North Korean shelling of the ROKs Yeonpyeong island in November 2010, public opinion surveys in the ROK showed a persistent suspicion that the ROK military or the US military was responsible for the sinking among a significant segment of the ROK public.5 As any visitor to ROK can see, the influence of American economic, political and cultural models is notable. The US-South Korea case illustrates some consequences of US polity influence in laying the long-term foundations for mutual soft power influence relationships. The bases of American-Korean perceived shared public attitudinal-cultural ties that facilitate Seouls perceived influence capabilities towards the US (active lever #2 below) include relative success in proselytizing American protestant Christianity in Korea beginning in the late nineteenth century.6 About two-thirds of Koreas Christians lived in what became the DPRK and many fled to the South in the ensuing turmoil of the partition.7 An explosive growth occurred in self-professed Protestant (Christian in Korean parlance) believers beginning in the 1960s concomitantly with South Koreas rapid economic development.8 The various Protestant sects today constitute around 20% of the South Korean population and another 11% self-identifies as Roman Catholic. The success of the appeal of Korea to segments of the US public is evident in the most recent reports of Christian activists, Korean and US, openly infiltrating into the DPRK, with the aim of disrupting the brutally abusive human rights performance of the regime.9 North Korean public attitudes are challenging to discern due to the totalitarian, closed control system. However, a wealthy Korean-American Presbyterian missionary played the leading role in establishing the first new private university in Pyongyang.10 The Presbyterian Somang and Sarang mega-churches in Seoul have played important roles in helping to fund and support this initiative.11 The mother of DPRK founder Kim Il-sung was a Presbyterian deacon and a government-sanctioned church in Pyongyang is named in her honor.12 This diplomatic negotiation context is also one in which people network effectively to achieve impressive objectives as in the example of the Somang (Hope) and Sarang (Love) churches. In this informal form of Track II diplomacy, amateurs may also play a role in shaping the diplomatic bargaining context.13
4 5

Christian Oliver, S Korea reshuffle keeps hard line on North, Financial Times, (8 August 2010). Threats from N. Korea Reveal Generation Gap in S.Korea, Chosun Ilbo, (9 June 2010). This report notes one poll that indicates 20% of the South Korean public did not believe that North Korea sank the Cheonan. 6 Dae Young Ryu, The Origin and Characteristics of Evangelical Protestantism in Korea at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, Church History, 77/2 (June 2008). 7 Jane Lampman, How Korea embraced Christianity, The Christian Science Monitor (7 March 2007). 8 Gil-Soo Han, Joy J. Han and Andrew Eungi Kim, Serving Two Masters: Protestant Churches in Korea and Money, International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, 9/4, (November 2009), 33334. White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) missionaries from the US arrived in late 19th century to bring what the South Koreans today call Christianity, while Roman Catholicism initially arrived by way of Korean converts from Beijing in the late 18th century establishing the presence of Catholics in Korea. 9 Beaumont, Peter, US human rights activist crosses Chinese border into North Korea: Missionary calls for Kim Jong-il to free political prisoners and give up power, The Observer, (27 December 2009). 10 Mark McDonald, An Unlikely Pairing Bears Fruit in North Korea, New York Times, (25 October 2010). 11 Interviews with Somang Church parishoners in 2011. As is widely known in Korea, President Lee Myung bak is a member and supporter of Somang Church, and church services regularly conclude with a prayer for President Lee Myung-bak (this writers direct observation). 12 Windows on Asia: North Korea-Religion, Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University, http://asia.isp.msu.edu/wbwoa/east_asia/north_korea/religion.htm. 13 Diana Chigas, Capacities and Limits of NGOs as Conflict Managers, Leashing the Dogs of War, eds.

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2) Perceived possible great power involvement: DPRK efforts to engage China are comprehendible as efforts to boost its leverage in negotiations with the ROK and its allies. During the Cold War the intensity of the Soviet-US conflict motivated their competition for influence in local conflicts elsewhere. A prospective US-China conflict would likely generate similar dynamics. National security actors in Washington would derivatively perceive South Korea as more important as a regional instrument for responding to the perceived challenge from China. Greater US interest in local allies to counter Chinese influence would consequently increase the diplomatic bargaining leverage of South Korea towards the US. South Koreas importance for the pursuit of US regional policy aims would increase as US regional competition with China intensifies. Similarly, the DPRKs dependency relationship with the PRC would also manifest increasing DPRK bargaining leverage towards Beijing insofar as Beijing would increasingly see the DPRK as necessary for counteracting US influence in East Asia. Concomitantly, the DPRK political vulnerability due to regime instability consequently would increase DPRK diplomatic bargaining leverage towards Beijing. This leverage may be used to obtain material resources and diplomatic support in order to maintain the political stability that is also in Beijings interest.14 3) Awareness of interdependence: Seoul has a great advantage in this lever in relation to the DPRK, which relies upon international economic subsidies in various forms, including from Seoul as well as from Beijing.15 These subsidies may be necessary for the DPRK regime to maintain itself. DPRK behavior may be understood as an attempt to compensate in negotiations through increasing the salience of the danger of accidental war with a nuclear-armed DPRK (discussed below) that also impacts the international business environment in Seoul. China surpassed the US as the ROKs largest overall trading partner in 2004.16 This source of leverage favors Washington and Beijing rather than Seoul. Seoul hopes that the mutual importance of China-South Korean trade ties provides a powerful incentive to encourage China at least to restrain North Koreas bellicose behavior towards the South.17 4) Perceived long term power alterations: #2 above highlighted the bargaining leverage of the ROK and DPRK towards their respective Great Power patrons as partly dependent on the intensity of Great Power conflict. The increasing relative economic and military power capabilities of China itself is a trend interacting with the potential for intensifying political conflict between the US and China to increase Seoul and Pyongyangs bargaining leverage towards their respective Great Power patrons. Seouls diplomatic objectives include encouraging Washington to continue to support a close alliance with Seoul to address the challenge from Pyongyang while being careful not to alienate a rising Beijing. The political significance of the recently adopted Free Trade Agreement between the US and the ROK is apparent

Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Hall, (Washington: United States Institute of Peace), 554. 14 Jayshree Bajoria, Backgrounder: The China-North Korea Relationship, Council on Foreign Relations (7 October 2010), http://www.cfr.org/china/china-north-korea-relationship/p11097. 15 Mark E. Manyin, South Korea-U.S. Economic Relations: Cooperation, Friction, and Prospects for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, (16 September 2005), 10. 16 Manyin, 2, 9. 17 Congressional Research Service, Chinas Foreign Policy and Soft Power in South America, Asia and Africa, Prepared for the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, April 2008, p. 56, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html.

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from a bargaining leverage perspective.18 In this assessment, it is comprehendible as a tactical move to fortify the ROKs diplomatic bargaining leverage towards the US and a rising China while working to promote continuing economic cooperation between China and the US with South Korea as a regional economic nexus between the two. As noted above, the DPRKs ability to rely on this lever in diplomatic bargaining is also significantly dependent on the state of relations between Washington and Beijing. The DPRK, consequently, has an interest in promoting a perception of threat from Washington among Beijing policy-making circles, although its capacity to do so is limited. Recent North Korean actions have led the US navy to engage in show-of-force exercises in the Yellow Sea jointly with South Korea.19 An American naval presence in the Yellow Sea has generated varying degrees of consternation in Beijing.20 Beijings response to the November 2010 US-ROK joint exercises in the Yellow Sea immediately following the DPRKs Yeonpyeong island bombardment, however, was comparatively restrained.21 5) Perceived economic/and/or political stability: This lever refers specifically to the legitimacy of the regime, rather than the political stability of a particular elite ruling faction. A general indicator of the degree of legitimacy is the extent and effectiveness of the role of coercion in the domestic political regime of the authorities in the initiating and target states. The ROK as a developed democracy has an advantage over the DPRK in this regard; the ROK regime authorities successfully exploit liberal political and economic policy models and remain in power. On the other hand, and perhaps counter-intuitively, the DPRKs comparative lack of development success and consequent potential instability can be a source of diplomatic bargaining leverage towards the PRC, if not to the ROK, to obtain material resources and diplomatic support. Again, the intensity of conflict between Beijing and Washington will indirectly help determine how much leverage Pyongyang may have over its own superpower patron. Media reports regularly note intensified repression by Chinese authorities in response to calls for a jasmine revolution following the Arab Spring.22 This behavior strongly implies that the authorities in China may view the prospect of the collapse of the DPRK regime as another source of political instability to be avoided. Political change may be inevitable in the DPRK, but the Kim ruling group may use this leverage to shape this change to serve its own perceived interests. 6) Perceived irrationality of leaders: evidently used intensively by the North Korean leadership towards all the other parties in the Six Party talks (North and South Korea, Japan, US, Russia, PRC), in conjunction with threat of accidental war involving weapons of mass destruction. The regime authorities demonstrated their tolerance of the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of North Korean citizens from starvation in the 1990s rather than risk the loss of the regime through reform. Global awareness of their collective choice arguably reinforces this lever.

18

South Korea says US FTA to draw China, Japan investment, channelnewsasia.com, (22 February 2012). ROK President Lee Myung-bak emphasized that the ROK-US FTA would attract additional Chinese (and Japanese) investment into the ROK as an access point into the US export market. 19 Joseph Cotterill, US sends aircraft carrier to Korea stand-off, Financial Times, (24 November 2010). 20 Kathrin Hille, China and US stage Yellow Sea war games, Financial Times, (3 September 2010). 21 Christian Oliver and Geoff Dyer, South Korean defence minister resigns, Financial Times, (26 November 2010). 22 Simon Rabinovitch, Beijing critic missing as Ai goes free, Financial Times (23 June 2011).

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7) Perceived likelihood of accidental war: DPRK nuclear weapons possession boosts the significance and magnitude of this lever towards the ROK and all interlocutors but especially towards the US, concomitantly with perceived irrationality of leaders. Analysts note that this leverage has been successful in acquiring economic subsidies for the DPRK from the international community.23 8) Perceived adverse effect on friendship: refers to personal relations among foreign policy decision makers as a factor shaping negotiations. High-profile visits by former US Presidents and others have at times contributed to significant policy outcomes.24 Determining whether or not a significant degree of personal rapport had developed between individual personalities interacting with Kim Jong-il is of course difficult. Determining whether or not the desire to preserve this rapport between him and other particular personalities had been a significant factor in North Korean policy decisions is even more so. Aside from the personal preferences of Kim Jong-il or his son, their decisional latitude within the North Korean political system to act on them to change radically the DPRKs nuclear policy was probably insignificant.25

Active Levers
1) Perceived ability to give or withhold aid: clearly a major source of ROK leverage towards the DPRK, South Korea is also developing its reputation further through becoming an international aid donor.26 South Koreas development success allowing it to become an international aid donor also increases its soft power bargaining leverage as discussed below under perceived transnational appeal of ideology. 2) Perceived ability to influence the actions of a third country: South Koreas globally perceived close relationship with the US increases its bargaining leverage towards other actors including the DPRK. Again, the nature of the relationship between Beijing and Washington will impact on the strength of this lever for use by the DPRK and the ROK in their negotiations with each other. To the extent the PRC is perceived in Pyongyang as committed to the Six Party format for negotiations over the DPRKs nuclear program, the bargaining leverage of Washington, Seoul and Tokyo towards the DPRK is increased. This lever also serves as a grouping into which to place the respective soft and hard power capabilities of the DPRK and ROK for influencing other countries in analyzing the DPRK-ROK dyadic diplomatic bargaining interaction per se. The ROKs soft power transnational appeal of ideology leverage towards the US includes American nationalist ideological selfidentification with South Korea as a critical, costly, but successful early battle in Asia in the

23

See, for example, Andrei Lankov, OPINION ASIA: You Cant Teach a New Kim Old Tricks: In an unusually witless move, Pyongyangs missile launch shoots down its own strategy to get food aid, Wall Street Journal, (21 March 2012). Lankov also emphasizes the critical importance of Korean nationalism in explaining the political behavior of both North and South Korea, Opinion: post-unification nationalism, Korea Times (22 April 2012). 24 Robert J. Art and Patrick N. Cronin claim that Jimmy Carters intervention in 1994 may well have avoided war, Coercive Diplomacy, Leashing the Dogs of War, eds. Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Hall, (Washington: United States Institute of Peace, 2007), 307. 25 Ken E. Gause, North Korean Civil-Military Trends: Military-First Politics to a Point, September 2006, 6, http://www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil/. 26 Christian Oliver, S Korea wants to be the perfect host but success is out of its hands, Financial Times (10 November 2010).

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long Cold War containment conflict in which the US ultimately prevailed in 1991.27 The DPRK similarly appeals to Peoples Republic of China leadership ideological sensibilities in reiterating the great sacrifices the PRC made in the Korean War, including the loss of Mao Tse-Tungs eldest son, Mao Anying, along with more than 183,000 other Chinese soldiers.28 Nationalism as a value is not an ideology per se but it can associate with ideology to intensify commitments to policy objectives, motivated by intense communal self-identification with a national in-group.29 Korean soft power arguably includes US nationalist ideological sympathy for the ROK and Chinese sympathy (albeit problematic) for the DPRK.30 As noted under passive lever #1, perceived public attitudes, the bases of American-Korean perceived shared cultural ties that facilitate Seouls perceived soft power influence capabilities towards the US also include relative success in proselytizing American protestant Christianity beginning in the late nineteenth century to the present.31 The election of Ban Ki-moon as UN Secretary General may be seen as one of the achievements of overall ROK bargaining leverage in international relations. The ROK is a close US ally yet an ROK candidate was acceptable to the other permanent members of the UN Security Council. North Korea carried out a nuclear weapons test explosion in the midst of the final stages of the 2006 UN decision-making process that selected Ban Ki-moon as the eighth secretary general of the United Nations.32 3) Perceived ability to use force: the DPRK leadership evidently perceived it as a relative strength during the late 1960s and early 70s that subsequently deteriorated.33 The surprise sinking of the Cheonan demonstrated that it had not deteriorated as much as observers may have assumed.34 On the one hand, failed missile tests may undermine perceptions of DPRK military technology and capabilities.35 On the other hand, the surprising speed of North Koreas development of uranium enrichment capabilities which it showcased to the international media in November 2010 also strengthens this lever.36 4) Perceived trade opportunities: a significant lever for South Korea in negotiations with all countries. As noted (above) to counter ROK potential trade pressure vulnerabilities to the DPRKs PRC ally, the ROK-US Free Trade Agreement is comprehendible as a counter27

Paul D. Wolfowitz attempted to appeal to American international self-identity in advocating the maintenance of a US military presence in Iraq: In Korea, a model for Iraq, New York Times (30 August 2010), providing political evidence of the salience of Korea in this regard. 28 Aaron Back, Remembrance as Reminder? Maos Son in N. Korea, Wall Street Journal: China (26 November 2010). This North Korean 60th anniversary commemoration ceremony occurred just days after the North Korean shelling of Yeonpyeong island. 29 Martha L. and Richard W. Cottam, Nationalism and Politics: the Political Behavior of Nation States , (Boulder: Lynne Reinner, 2001), 416. 30 Benjamin Kang Lim, China, between a rocket and a hard place on North Korea, Reuters (10 April 2012). 31 Dae Young Ryu, The Origin and Characteristics of Evangelical Protestantism in Korea at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, Church History, 77/2 (June 2008). 32 Warre Hoge and Choe Sang-Hun, Security Council Approves South Korean as U.N. Chief, New York Times, (10 October 2006). 33 e.g. Mitchell Lerner, The USS Pueblo Incident, (13 November 2002), http://web.mit.edu/ssp/seminars/wed_ archives02fall/lerner.htm; Erik Slavin, Tragic 1976 ax murders at Korean DMZ recalled, Stars and Stripes (16 August 2008); DMZ-DPRK Tunnels, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/kpa-tunnels.htm. This period corresponded with the US de-escalation and end of military operations in Southeast Asia. 34 Norths New Midget Subs are Torpedo Equipped, Korea Joongang Daily, (7 December 2010). 35 Obama: North Korea not real good at rocket launches; failed launch still a deep concern, Washington Post (14 April 2012). 36 Daniel Dombey, N Korea Reveals New Uranium Facility, Financial Times (21 November 2010).

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move to raise the ROKs value to rising China in the ROKs current status as a partner of the US. The FTA arguably makes the ROK an even more important access point into the US market for Chinese firms investing in and partnering with ROK firms. 5) Perceived ability to deal with domestic political dissatisfaction: This lever refers to the typically more specific and immediate diplomatic political context issue of the stability of a particular government or ruling elite faction rather than to the basic issue of the legitimacy and stability of the regime (passive levers #1 and #5 above). In the DPRK case, however, the two may be so closely related that they are essentially the same: the rule of the Kim dynasty may be synonymous with the survival of the regime and the existence of the DPRK itself. North Koreas totalitarian control system had given its authorities an advantage relative to the ROK during the height of the Cold War. Its ability to control information access by the population has significantly decreased.37 The disintegration and collapse of the Cold War along with the supremacy of liberal economic globalization has contributed to the increasing domestic public discontent towards Kim Jong-il following the 2002 economic reforms adopted in the DPRK.38 The strength of the DPRK control apparatus in the form of the state coercive apparatus would affect the strength of this lever in diplomatic negotiations, and indeed the South Korean balloon propaganda offensive has targeted the North Korean military.39 ROK President Lee Myung-bak had earlier suspended the ROK sunshine diplomacy approach to the DPRK of his predecessor, which had emphasized increasing economic interaction and aid to the DPRK to encourage compliance with international community demands regarding the DPRKs nuclear program.40 The increasing belligerency of the DPRK authorities towards the ROK is arguably comprehendible according to this framework as an attempt to weaken the domestic political authority of ROK President Lee Myung-bak and his ruling New Frontier party. If so, then the generally unexpected maintenance of ruling party majority control in the 12 April 2012 ROK National Assembly parliamentary elections was therefore an apparent DPRK failure.41 6) Perceived transnational appeal of ideology: The post Cold War appeal of the South Korean national development model is a source of soft power leverage in the post Cold War era of globalization and global capitalism in Asia and on the Korean Peninsula.42 In ROKDPRK diplomatic bargaining, attempts to boost this lever occur when the diplomatic interlocutors with the DPRK actively attempt to inform the North Korean public of the compar37

Daniel Byman and Jennifer Lind, Pyongyangs Survival Strategy: Tools of Authoritarian Control in North Korea, International Security, 35/1, (Summer 2010) 55. 38 Jiyoung Song, The Right to Survival in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, European Journal of East Asian Studies, 9/1 (2001) esp. 1045. 39 Mark McDonald, N. Korea Threatens South on Balloon Propaganda, New York Times (27 February 2011), these leaflets are most likely to be encountered by the million North Korea soldiers stationed along the demilitarized zone (DMZ). Other forms of psychological warfare include South Koreas placement of illuminated large steel Christmas trees along the DMZ; see, for example: Matthew Cortina, Christmas Trees Removed From North Korean Border as Christian Goodwill Gesture, Christian Post, (26 December 2011), noting that the trees were switched off a few days later as a good will gesture to North Korea following the death of Kim Jong-Il on 19 December 2011 while the North Korean authorities had earlier threatened unexpected consequences for the lit display. 40 Donald Kirk, As North Korea plans missile launch, South Koreas conservatives edge out liberals, Christian Science Monitor (12 April 2012). 41 Unexpected Election Win for South Koreas Ruling Party, Deutsche Welle (12 April 2012) 42 Dr. Stephen Noerper, Speaker and Moderator and Senior Vice President, The Korea Society, Korea as a Development Model, Transcript of Executive Breakfast, 1 December 2010.

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ative political and economic deprivation of the DPRK, especially (but not only) in relation to the ROK.43 Indirectly, it would affect ROK-DPRK interaction to the extent that the DPRK leadership perceives it as appealing internationally to influence the actions of third countries (active lever #2 above). 7) Perceived willingness to alter relationship type: The relevance of this lever to intraKorean relations is indirect insofar that each side uses it as a lever with their respective patron: the DPRK towards China (perhaps negligible but a DPRK switch to alliance with Russia is arguably conceivable) and the ROK towards the US.44 South Koreas political dependence upon the US may make this option appear weak. The intensity of this lever for use by lesser powers will co-vary with the intensity of Great Power conflict and political competition. Conceivably, the possibility of a PRC attempt to appeal to pan-Korean nationalist attitudes in the form of a promise of support for Korean reunification in return for the ROK leaving the US alliance system is a factor that the US government has to consider in formulating its demands towards the South Korean government as the South Korean economy becomes increasingly dependent on China. The intensity of national communal motivations, while subdued and not so salient during periods of perceived stability, may suddenly resurge during times of rapid political change/crises, as illustrated in the case of German reunification. Once the unthinkable became quite plausible in 1989 due to changes in the USSR, Germany quickly reunified, at high economic cost to West Germans, despite trends in public opinion polls over the previous decades indicating that West Germans, and particularly young West Germans, had as a whole lost interest in reunification.45 The intensity of pan-Korean political unification sentiments among South Koreans in terms of their collective behavioral willingness to accept the burden of a massive transfer of wealth to integrate the north are a topic of speculation in the international media.46

Conclusion
As the analytical summary above highlights, active and passive levers are products of the interactive development of both North and South Korea with the international political system since national partition in 1945. In accordance with neoliberal institutionalist analysis in international relations theory, American hegemony largely creates the international political environment enabling South Korean hard and soft power capabilities.47 In diplomatic bargaining, various levers operate simultaneously and affect, negatively and positively, each others effectiveness: a leverage system.48 The aim here has been to begin to conceptualize the general concept of soft power as bargaining leverage in interna43

See, for example, Mark McDonald, N. Korea Threatens South on Balloon Propaganda, New York Times (27 February 2011), in which the South Korean authorities included information about the Arab uprisings in millions of leaflets sent by the South Korean military in February 2011. 44 Henry Meyer, North Korean Leader Kim Backs Natural-Gas Pipeline, Russia Says, Bloomberg Businessweek, (3 February 2012). Of course, if actually built, then such a pipeline would affect other DPRK bargaining leverage towards the ROK and the rest of the world also. 45 Martha L. and Richard W. Cottam, Nationalism and Politics, 128. 46 See, for example, David Pilling, The fantastical dream of a united Korea, Financial Times (6 May 2010). 47 See, for example, Arthur A. Stein, Neoliberal Institutionalism, The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, eds. Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 21011, sec. Coercive Cooperation: The Power of Clubs and First Movers. 48 Cottam and Gallucci, The Rehabilitation of Power, 4849.

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tional diplomacy in a comparative setting with other sources of bargaining leverage. Smart power as a current concept in international relations discourse is successful international diplomacy that coordinates bargaining leverage application effectively with predictable consequences and more effective planning over the short, medium and long term.49 Generating predictable consequences that lowers the danger of loss of control over the political dynamics of a crisis is a more challenging task without a clearer understanding of the political context. This context includes unsatisfied pan-Korean nationalist public attitudes as well as American and Chinese security and economic vested interests and communal and ideological attachments.50

About the Author

Prof. Benedict Edward DeDominicis Ben DeDominicis currently lives in Seoul, South Korea. He earned his PhD in political science from the University of Pittsburgh and his BA from Ohio State University. He completed a semester of study in Moscow. Dr. DeDominicis taught at the new, USAID-funded American University in Bulgaria for 15 years before taking a position at the Catholic University of Korea. His Walden University specialization includes public policy and human resource management. His research interests include Bulgaria and Southeastern Europe, Newly Independent States and Greater Middle East, American foreign policy, and the United Nations, European integration, and Korean and Northeast Asian international relations.

49

Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela R. Aall, Leashing the Dogs of War, Leashing the Dogs of War. eds. Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Hall, (Washington: United States of Institute of Peace, 2007), 13. Smart power involves the strategic use of diplomacy, persuasion, capacity building, and the projection of power and influence in ways that are cost-effective and have political and social legitimacy. 50 Martha L. and Richard W. Cottam, Nationalism and Politics, esp. 13133, 24145.

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Editor
Bill Cope, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA

Editorial Advisory Board

Patrick Baert, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK Norma Burgess, Syracuse University, Syracuse, USA Bill Cope, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA Peter Harvey, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia Vangelis Intzidis, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece Paul James, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA Gerassimos Kouzelis, University of Athens, Athens, Greece Massimo Leone, University of Turin, Turin, Italy Alexandros-Andreas Kyrtsis, University of Athens, Athens, Greece Jos Luis Ortega Martn, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain Bertha Ochieng, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK Francisco Fernandez Palomares, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain Miguel A. Pereyra, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain Constantine D. Skordoulis, University of Athens, Athens, Greece Chad Turnbull, ESADE Business School, Barcelona, Spain Chryssi Vitsilakis-Soroniatis, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece

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