The U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement Negotiation Under Two-Level Games

The paper studies the bargaining and ratification process of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement ( KORUS FTA) by using Robert D. Putnam's two-level-games approach, analyses and discusses that domestic and international interaction lead to a tentative FTA between the U.S. and Korea on the one hand, and bring severe tests to the respective congress ratification of the KORUS FTA on the other hand.From the theoretical perspective of the two-level games, Level I of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement negotiation is the process that leaders of the both countries bargain over the respective objective to the tentative U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, while Level II is the phase in which domestic constituents in either country discuss and decide whether to ratify and implement KORUS FTA. Level II win-sets are crucial to understand the Level I agreement, for any successful agreement must fall within the Level II win-sets of the both parties.In the course of the KORUS FTA negotiation, we can find that the win-sets of the U.S. and Korea can be resized by their government leader. Both leaders attempt to expand their win-sets by using or changing their domestic procedures and institutions to take a better bargaining advantage and encourage the ratification of the agreement. Moreover, the strategies of the U.S. and Korean leaders and negotiators also exert great effect on the process and outcome of the negotiation.China is a leading trade country facing international trading frictions. The Characteristics and general rules embodied in the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement negotiation deserve our exploration. Enough attention should be also given to the effect of Trade Promote Authority in the course of the negotiation. Meanwhile, this work indicates that the two-level game is a favorable theoretical framework to observe the interaction between international and domestic politics. Thus it provides us with a new theoretical paradigm for the analysis on the international cooperation process.