No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 March 2016
The Bush administration has pursued a new, hard-line approach to the current nuclear standoff with North Korea. In efforts to build public support from the American public as well as from its allies in the region, the Bush administration has carefully framed, in distinctive ways, the nature of the crisis and the grounds for an appropriate response to North Korea's nuclear brinkmanship. To assess the effects of these U.S. messages designed to build public support for its hard-line approach, we conducted a short experimental study in the United States and in South Korea. Our results indicate that many of these messages induce diverging responses in the two countries, implying that the Bush administration's rhetoric designed to build domestic support does not have comparable effects in South Korea.
This research has been funded by the Center for International Studies, Yonsei University, and the Hoover Institution. The authors would like to thank Steve Kahng for encouragement and support
1. Gordon, Michael R., “U.S. Readies Plan to Raise Pressure on North Koreans,” New York Times, December 29, 2002.Google Scholar
2. Cha, Victor, “Korea's Place in the Axis,” Foreign Affairs 81, no. 3 (May–June 2002). The author analyzes the differences between the Clinton and Bush administration policies in greater detail.Google Scholar
3. Dorrusen, Han and Mo, Jongryn, “Ending Economic Sanctions: Audience Costs and Rent-Seeking as Commitment Strategies,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 45, no. 4 (August 2001): 395–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4. Laney, James and Shaplen, Jason, “How to Deal with North Korea,” Foreign Affairs 16, no. 2 (2003): 16–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5. Gottemoeller, Rose, “A Deal That Worked,” New York Times, April 26, 2003.Google Scholar
6. The UN Security Council passed Resolution 1441 on November 8, 2002.Google Scholar
7. ABC News poll.Google Scholar
8. Segye Ilbo, June 3, 2003.Google Scholar
9. Iyengar, Shanto, Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); Jacoby, William G., “Issue Framing and Public Opinion on Government Spending,” American Journal of Political Science 44, no. 4 (October 2000): 750–767.Google Scholar
10. Gamson, William A., Talking Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).Google Scholar
11. Kahneman, Daniel and Tversky, Amos, “The Psychology of Preferences,” Science 24, no. 1 (1982): 136–142.Google Scholar
12. Kinder, Donald R. and Sanders, Lynn M., Divided by Color: Racial Politics and Democratic Ideals (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Nelson, Thomas E., Oxley, Zoe M., and Clawson, Rosalee A., “Toward a Psychology of Framing Effects,” Political Behavior 19, no. 3 (1997): 221–246.Google Scholar
13. For example, Gamson, , Talking Politics. Google Scholar
14. Jacoby, , “Issue Framing and Public Opinion on Government Spending.” Google Scholar
15. Cantril, Alber H. and Cantril, Susan Davis, Reading Mixed Signals: Ambivalence in American Public Opinion About Government (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1999); Lock, Shmuel T., Shapiro, Robert Y., and Jacobs, Lawrence R., “The Impact of Public Debate on Government Trust: Reminding the Public What the Federal Government Does,” Political Behavior 21, no. 3 (1999): 239–264.Google Scholar
16. Nelson, Thomas E. and Kinder, Donald R., “Issue Frames and Group-Centerims in American Public Opinion,” Journal of Politics 58, no. 4 (1996): 1055–1078.Google Scholar
17. Gilen, Martin, Why Americans Hate Welfare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).Google Scholar
18. Halloran, Richard, “Korean Surprise,” Baltimore Sun, April 3, 2003.Google Scholar
19. House, Karen Elliot, “The Lessons of North Korea: Appeasing a Tyrant Leads to Disaster,” Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2003.Google Scholar
20. In presenting this argument, however, the Bush administration has not made much use of North Korea's previous failures to live up to its tough rhetoric. Admiral Joy, chief UN negotiator during the armistice negotiations in the Korean War, noting that North Koreans made concessions when they lacked power to resist, commented that “force was a decisive factor, the only logic the communists truly understand.” Google Scholar
21. In none of these courses was North Korea a central topic. American subjects were drawn from two courses on political economy. These courses focused on various political science applications of game theory analysis. South Korean subjects were drawn from two introductory-level political science courses at a large university in Pusan, South Korea. Given the topical features of these courses, little discussion about the North Korea nuclear problem took place. Therefore, it is unlikely that any course discussion interfered with the findings featured in this study.Google Scholar
22. Steinberg, David, “Korean Attitudes Towards the United States: The Complexities of an Enduring and Endured Relationship,” Asian Studies Program Conference Report (Washington, D.C.: School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, January 2003).Google Scholar
23. We acknowledge, because we relied on a nonrepresentative sample, that we are not in a position to assess the generalizability of our findings. Arguably, however, our South Korean sample consists of participants who are most difficult to “persuade,” because young Koreans (including college students) hold relatively strong pro–North Korea (and anti-American) attitudes. Accordingly, it is worth noting that this is likely to create a downward bias in our estimates of framing effects, making it more difficult to find significant results. In any event, at least within the context of our experiment, by the logic of random assignment, we can attribute any postexposure group differences to the experimental treatment itself.Google Scholar
24. Orne, Martin T., “On the Social Psychology of the Psychological Experiment,” American Psychologist 17 (1962): 776–783.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
25. The length of the five articles was kept nearly identical; it ranged from 300 to 327 words.Google Scholar
26. The questions were worded as follows: (1) “How much do you agree or disagree with the following statement? The current North Korean nuclear crisis posits a serious threat to the security in East Asia”; (2) “How much do you agree or disagree with the following statement? The current North Korean nuclear crisis calls for an immediate action.” Google Scholar
27. In terms of policy goals, one major disagreement is whether future policies must focus primarily on eliminating weapons of mass destruction from the Korean peninsula or on avoiding military conflict in the Korean peninsula. Accordingly, we employed the following two measures to capture this core dimension in the current debate: How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statements? (1) “It is important that North Korea give up nuclear weapons”; and (2) “Even if North Korea possesses nuclear weapons, it is important to avoid a military conflict with North Korea.” Google Scholar
28. We asked the following two questions: (1) “How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statement? If the United States (South Korea) decides to negotiate with North Korea, the United States (South Korea) should make it clear that it is willing to impose sanctions and isolation on North Korea.” (2) “How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statement? If the United States (South Korea) decides to negotiate with North Korea, the United States (South Korea) should make it clear that it is willing to use force against North Korea.” Google Scholar
29. The question was worded as follows: “How much do you agree or disagree with the following statement? The U.S. and South Korea share common interests with respect to the current North Korean nuclear crisis.” Google Scholar
30. This difference was statistically significant at p < .01 in a paired t-test.Google Scholar
31. For example, Steinberg, , “Korean Attitudes Towards the United States.” Also see Moon, Katharine, “Korean Nationalism, Anti-Americanism, and Democratic Consolidation,” in Kim, Samuel S., ed., Korea's Democratization (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).Google Scholar
32. McFadden, Daniel, “Conditional Logit Analysis of Qualitative Choice Behavior.” In Zarembka, Paul, ed., Frontier in Econometrics (New York: Academic Press, 1974).Google Scholar
33. Kamakura, Wagner A. and Mazzon, Jose Alfonso, “Value Segmentation: A Model for the Measurement of Values and Value System,” Journal of Consumer Research 18, no. 2 (1991): 208–218.Google Scholar
34. Beggs, S., Cardell, S., and Hausman, J., “Assessing the Potential Demand for Electric Cars,” Journal of Econometrics 16, no. 1 (1981): 1–19. For interested readers, this model is also known as the Plackett-Luce model or the choice-based method of conjoint analysis.Google Scholar
35. For example, McFadden, , “Conditional Logit Analysis of Qualitative Choice Behavior.” Google Scholar
36. We indeed found that the security message did make South Korean subjects feel more urgency. But this apparently led them to believe that even more dovish measures ought to be employed to resolve the conflict in a timely manner.Google Scholar
37. It ought to be noted that we replicated all our findings based on respondents' absolute policy support by taking an alternative analytical approach. We modeled respondents' absolute support for the five policy alternatives in a seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) model. Substantively, our results remained unaltered from those reported here. For brevity, we omit these results from this report.Google Scholar
38. In support of this view, we found that, inferring from “feeling thermometer” ratings, the humanitarian message significantly lowered their favorable attitudes toward both North Korea and Kim Jong Il.Google Scholar