International Relations of the Asia-Pacific Advance Access published online on September 10, 2009
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, doi:10.1093/irap/lcp016
Collective identity formation on the Korean Peninsula: United States' different North Korea policies, Kim Dae–Jung's Sunshine Policy, and United States–South Korea–North Korea relations
Political Science & International Studies, Yonsei University, 134 Sinchon-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea 120-749
Email: youngchul.cho{at}gmail.com
Focusing on the US Clinton and Bush administration's dissimilar security policies and practices toward the Korean Peninsula, this article aims to examine how the two different external security environments shaped South Korea's collective identity in relation, respectively, to the United States and North Korea, and the Sunshine Policy in different ways, with a temporal focus on the Kim Dae-Jung administration (1998–2003). In so doing, this article will investigate the following substantive questions: what are the reason and implication of harmony between South Korea–US alliance identity and inter-Korean national identity in South Korea during the Clinton administration? In contrast, what are the reason and implication of discord between the two identities during the Bush administration? Related to these questions, this article presents two analytical arguments on the formation of South Korea's collective identity associated with the Sunshine Policy, along with an International Relations theoretical argument implicated in the empirical analysis.
Received for publication December 23, 2008. Accepted for publication August 10, 2009.