Explaining security policy dynamics in South Korea: How political institutions respond to internal and external changes

This study attempts to clarify the extent to which shifts in the international systemic and domestic institutional factors have contributed to South Korea's security policy change. Among the most important changes are the areas of international security structure, economic interdependence, and institutional arrangements of South Korea's domestic politics. Responding to these changes, South Korea's security policy behaviors reflect both convergent and discontinuous characteristics in its formulation and implementation of security policies. A variety of perspectives on changing security policy offer unique possibilities for developing and testing several theoretical insights vis-a-vis the nature and the process of security policy change. A fundamental question is: Under what conditions do domestic politics matter more than international politics, or vice versa?; There has not been, as of yet, a sufficient institutional analysis into security policy dynamics. This study examines the relative explanatory power of internal and external determinants of South Korea's security policy change during the Cold War era (1954--1987), transitional phase (1988--1992), and post-Cold War era (1993--1998). It develops a historical-comparative analysis, which assesses South Korea's strategic response to the transition in its own security structure. Fluctuations in international and domestic determinants generate different security policies in different situations. This study suggests that an integrated approach of system-level and state-level analyses is necessary to establish a comprehensive understanding of South Korea's security policy change. The author contends that a policy change also occurs as the result of alterations in domestic institutional arrangements, although international systemic factors determine the general route of security policies.