Blame Game under Fire: Parsing South Korean Debate on North Korea Policy

Abstract

This paper critically evaluates key arguments pervading the debate on how Seoul's policy has affected Pyongyang's recent aggression, and offers an alternative perspective. It argues that all conventional wisdom (which either denies the significance of Seoul's North Korea policy or views the level of engagement as mainly shaping Pyongyang's behavior) has only weak empirical support, but remains salient because it serves parochial political interests in the partisan blame game. In reality, Seoul's policy has amplified North Korean belligerence primarily because it has been partisan in nature. Resolving this problem requires promoting post-partisanship, to which independent scholars and institutions can contribute significantly.