Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T19:54:58.785Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The ideational foundations of coercion: political culture and policies towards North Korea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2015

Michal Onderco  and
Wolfgang Wagner
Michal Onderco*
Affiliation:
Department of Public Administration, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Burgemeester Oudlaan, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Wolfgang Wagner
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
*
*E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The notion that states’ foreign and security policies are not exclusively driven by material interests is now firmly established. Whose ideas matter and in what way, however, has remained subject to debate. We advance this debate by studying the crisis diplomacy of liberal democracies towards North Korea during four crises around the country’s violation of international norms between 1993 and 2009. Although liberal democracies share a common perception of North Korea’s nuclear programme as a threat to international peace and security, they differ widely in either confronting or accommodating North Korea. We examine the explanatory power of two ideational driving forces behind the foreign policy of liberal democracies: the ideological orientation of the government, on the one hand, and a country’s political culture, on the other. Our analysis of 22 liberal democracies demonstrates that different domestic cultures of dealing with norm violations have a significant impact on crisis diplomacy: countries with punitive domestic cultures tend to adopt confrontational policies towards international norm violators; while left governments are not more accommodationist than right governments. Ideational differences across states are thus more pronounced than those within states.

Keywords

foreign policypolitical culturegovernment ideologypunitivityNorth Korea
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , May 2017 , pp. 279 - 302
Copyright
© European Consortium for Political Research 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

AFP/DPA (2001), ‘Deutschland nimmt diplomatische Beziehungen zu Nordkorea auf’. Retrieved 20 July 2013 from http://www.netzeitung.de/1/132733.html Google Scholar
Albright, M. (1998), ‘Remarks by Secretary of State Madeleine K.Albright at Howard University’. Retrieved 5 June 2013 from http://www.fas.org/news/usa/1998/04/98041503_tpo.html Google Scholar
Andersson, M. and Bae, J. (2015), ‘Sweden’s engagement with the democratic people’s Republic of Korea’, North Korean Review 11: 42–62.Google Scholar
Arena, P. and Palmer, G. (2009), ‘Politics or the economy? Domestic correlates of dispute involvement in developed democracies’, International Studies Quarterly 53: 955–975.Google Scholar
Armingeon, K., Engler, S., Potolidis, P., Gerber, M. and Leimgruber, P. (2012), Comparative Political Data Set 1960-2010, Berne: Institute of Political Science, University of Berne.Google Scholar
Banks, A.S. and Wilson, K.A. (2013), Cross-National Time-Series Data Archive, Jerusalem, Israel: Databanks International.Google Scholar
Barnett, M. (1999), ‘Culture, strategy and foreign policy change: Israel’s road to Oslo’, European Journal of International Relations 5: 1–36.Google Scholar
Bauman, Z. (2000), ‘Social issues of law and order’, British Journal of Criminology 40: 205–221.Google Scholar
Beck, T., Clarke, G., Groff, A., Keefer, P. and Walsh, P. (2001), ‘New tools in comparative political economy: the database of political institutions’, The World Bank Economic Review 15: 165–176.Google Scholar
Beck, U. (1992), Risk Society, London: Sage.Google Scholar
Berger, T. (1996), ‘Norms, identity, and national security in Germany and Japan’, in P. Katzenstein (ed.), The Culture of National Security. Norms and Identity in World Politics, New York, NY: Columbia University Press, pp. 317–356.Google Scholar
Berger, T.U. (1998), Cultures of Antimilitarism: National Security in Germany and Japan, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Brecher, M. and Wilkenfeld, J. (2010), ‘International Crisis Behavior Project’. Retrieved 1 September 2015 from http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/icb/dataviewer/ Google Scholar
Breuning, M. (1995), ‘Words and deeds: foreign assistance rhetoric and policy behavior in the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United Kingdom’, International Studies Quarterly 39: 235–254.Google Scholar
Bridges, B. (2003), ‘Western Europe and North Korea: new openings and old problems’, East Asia 20: 86–107.Google Scholar
Bush, G.W. (2002), ‘State of the Union Address’. Retrieved 5 June 2013 from http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html Google Scholar
Cha, V.D. and Kang, D.C. (2003), Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies, New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Clare, J. (2010), ‘Ideological fractionalization and the international conflict behavior of parliamentary democracies1’, International Studies Quarterly 54: 965–987.Google Scholar
Correlates of War (2012), ‘National Material Capabilities’. Retrieved 20 July 2013 from http://www.correlatesofwar.org/COW2%20Data/Capabilities/nmc3-02.htm Google Scholar
Dorient, R. (2002), ‘Un septennat de politique asiatique: quel bilan pour la France?’ Politique étrangère 67: 173–188.Google Scholar
Döring, H. and Manow, P. (2012), ‘Parliament and government composition database (ParlGov): an infrastructure for empirical information on parties, elections and governments in modern democracies’. Retrieved 27 March 2015 from http://www.parlgov.org/static/static-2014/stable/index.html Google Scholar
Duffield, J.S. (1999), ‘Political culture and state behavior: why Germany confounds neorealism’, International Organization 53: 765–803.Google Scholar
Farrell, T. (2002), ‘Constructivist security studies: portrait of a research program’, International Studies Review 4: 49–72.Google Scholar
Feeley, M.M. and Simon, J. (1992), ‘The new penology. Notes on the emerging strategy of corrections and its implications’, Criminology 30: 449–474.Google Scholar
Finnemore, M. (1996), National Interests in International Society, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Fitzpatrick, M. (2011), North Korean Security Challenges: A Net Assessment, London: International Institute for Strategic Studies.Google Scholar
Fitzpatrick, M. (2012), ‘North Korean proliferation challenges: the role of the European Union’. Retrieved 25 August 2013 from http://www.nonproliferation.eu/documents/nonproliferationpapers/markfitzpatrick5033c68918a28.pdf Google Scholar
Ford, G. and Kwon, S. (2008), North Korea on the Brink: Struggle for Survival, London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Garland, D. (2001), The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society, Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Gartzke, E. (2000), ‘Preferences and the democratic peace’, International Studies Quarterly 44: 191–212.Google Scholar
Geis, A. (2013), ‘Burdens of the past, shadows of the future. The use of military force as challenge for the German ‘civilian power’, in A. Geis, H. Müller and N. Schörnig (eds), The Militant Face of Democracy: Liberal Forces for Good, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 231–269.Google Scholar
Geis, A., Müller, H. and Schörnig, N. (eds) (2013), The Militant Face of Democracy: Liberal Forces for Good, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hosli, M.O., Mattila, M. and Uriot, M. (2011), ‘Voting in the council of the European Union after the 2004 enlargement: a comparison of old and new member states’, Journal of Common Market Studies 49: 1249–1270.Google Scholar
Huth, P.K. (1989), Extended Deterrence and the Prevention of War, New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
International Centre For Prison Studies (2010), ‘World prison population list (various versions)’. Retrieved 12 July 2012 from http://www.prisonstudies.org/info/worldbrief/ Google Scholar
Jachtenfuchs, M., Diez, T. and Jung, S. (1998), ‘Which Europe?’, European Journal of International Relations 4: 409–445.Google Scholar
Jepperson, R., Wendt, A. and Katzenstein, P.J. (1996), ‘Norms, identity, and culture in national security’, in P.J. Katzenstein (ed.), The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 33–75.Google Scholar
Johnston, A.I. (1996), ‘Cultural realism and strategy in Maoist China’, in P.J. Katzenstein (ed.), The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, New York, NY: Columbia University Press, pp. 216–268.Google Scholar
Kagan, R. (2002), ‘Power and weakness’, Policy Review 113: 3–28.Google Scholar
Kang, D.C. (2003), ‘Threatening, but deterrence works’, in V.D. Cha and D.C. Kang (eds) Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies, New York, NY: Columbia University Press, pp. 41–69.Google Scholar
Katzenstein, P.J. (1978), Between Power and Plenty: Foreign Economic Policies of Advanced Industrial States, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Kelly, R.E. (2012), ‘Korea–European Union relations: beyond the FTA?’ International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 12: 101–132.Google Scholar
Kier, E. (1997), Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrine Between the Wars, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kihl, Y.W. and Kim, H.N. (2006), North Korea: The Politics of Regime Survival, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Klingemann, H.-D., Hofferbert, R.I. and Budge, I. (1994), Parties, Policies, and Democracy, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Koch, M.T. (2009), ‘Governments, partisanship, and foreign policy: the case of dispute duration’, Journal of Peace Research 46: 799–817.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korea Times (2000), ‘EU has no common NK policy: Schroeder’. Korea Times, 22 October. Retrieved from LexisNexis.Google Scholar
Kroenig, M. (2009), ‘Exporting the bomb: why states provide sensitive nuclear assistance’ American Political Science Review 103: 113–133.Google Scholar
Kroenig, M. (2014), ‘Force or friendship? Explaining great power nonproliferation policy’, Security Studies 32: 1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lake, A. (1994), ‘Confronting backlash states’, Foreign Affairs 73: 45–55.Google Scholar
Lankov, A. (2014), The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lappi-Seppälä, T. (2011), ‘Explaining imprisonment in Europe’, European Journal of Criminology 8: 303–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liberman, P. (2006), ‘An eye for an eye: public support for war against evildoers’, International Organization 60: 687–722.Google Scholar
Liberman, P (2007), ‘Punitiveness and U.S. elite support for the 1991 Persian Gulf War’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 51: 3–32.Google Scholar
Liberman, P (2013), ‘Retributive support for international punishment and torture’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 57: 285–306.Google Scholar
Lumsdaine, D.H. (1993), Moral Vision in International Politics: The Foreign Aid Regime, 1949-1989, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Maoz, Z. and Russett, B. (1993), ‘Normative and structural causes of democratic peace, 1946-1986’, The American Political Science Review 87: 624–638.Google Scholar
Marquis, C. (2000), ‘U.S. declares rogue nations are now states of concern’. Retrieved 3 September 2012 from http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/20/world/us-declares-rogue-nations-are-now-states-of-concern.html Google Scholar
Matzav, (2015), ‘Netanyahu: Iran nuclear deal “repeats mistakes” made with North Korea’. Retrieved 20 August 2015 from http://matzav.com/netanyahu-iran-nuclear-deal-repeats-mistakes-made-with-north-korea/ Google Scholar
Maull, H.W. (1990), ‘Germany and Japan: the new civilian powers’, Foreign Affairs 69: 91–106.Google Scholar
Mello, P.A. (2014), Democratic Participation in Armed Conflict: Military Involvement in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, Basingstoke: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Morgan, R. and Liebling, A. (2007), ‘Imprisonment. An expanding scene’, in M. Maguire, R. Morgan and R. Reiner (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, Oxford; New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp. 1100–1138.Google Scholar
Nye, J.S. (1988), ‘Neorealism and neoliberalism’, World Politics 40: 235–251.Google Scholar
O’malley, P. (2010), Crime and Risk, Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.Google Scholar
Onderco, M. and Wagner, W. (2012), ‘Of hawks and doves. Mapping policies towards Iran and North Korea’, The Nonproliferation Review 19: 177–195.Google Scholar
Palmer, G., London, T. and Regan, P. (2004), ‘What’s stopping you? The sources of political constraints on international conflict behavior in parliamentary democracies’, International Interactions 30: 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pew Research Center (2013), ‘Public divided over North Korea’s intentions, capability’. Retrieved 18 July 2013 from http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/09/public-divided-over-north-koreas-intentions-capability/ Google Scholar
Pinker, S (2011), The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined, New York, NY: Viking.Google Scholar
Plümper, T. and Troeger, V.E. (2007), ‘Efficient estimation of time-invariant and rarely changing variables in finite sample panel analyses with unit fixed effects’, Political Analysis 15: 124–139.Google Scholar
Rathbun, B.C. (2004), Partisan Interventions: European Party Politics and Peace Enforcement in the Balkans, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Rathbun, B.C. (2007), ‘Hierarchy and community at home and abroad: evidence of a common structure of domestic and foreign policy beliefs in American elites’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution 51: 379–407.Google Scholar
Ray, L (1999), ‘Measuring party orientations towards European integration: results from an expert survey’, European Journal of Political Research 36: 283–306.Google Scholar
Reiter, D (1999), ‘Military strategy and the outbreak of international conflict’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 43: 366–387.Google Scholar
Risse, T., Engelmann-Martin, D., Knope, H.-J. and Roscher, K. (1999), ‘To Euro or not to Euro?’ European Journal of International Relations 5: 147–187.Google Scholar
Sagan, S.D. and Waltz, K.N. (2003), The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed, New York, NY: Norton.Google Scholar
Schuster, J. and Maier, H. (2006), ‘The rift: explaining Europe’s divergent Iraq policies in the run-up of the American-led war on Iraq’, Foreign Policy Analysis 2: 223–244.Google Scholar
Seki, K. and Williams, L.K. (2014), ‘Updating the party government data set’, Electoral Studies 34: 270–279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siverson, R.M. and Tennefoss, M.R. (1984), ‘Power, alliance, and the escalation of international conflict, 1815-1965’, The American Political Science Review 78: 1057–1069.Google Scholar
Skitka, L.J. and Tetlock, P.E. (1993), ‘Providing public assistance: cognitive and motivational processes underlying liberal and conservative policy preferences’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65: 1205–1223.Google Scholar
Stein, R.M. (2015), ‘War and revenge: explaining conflict initiation by democracies’, American Political Science Review 109: 556–573.Google Scholar
Sweden Abroad (2015), ‘The Embassy’. Retrieved 7 August 2015 from http://www.swedenabroad.com/en-GB/Embassies/Pyongyang/About-us/About-the-Embassy/ Google Scholar
The Guardian (2006), ‘North Korea claims first nuclear test’. Retrieved 20 August 2015 from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/oct/09/northkorea Google Scholar
The National Committee on North Korea (2013), ‘DPRK diplomatic relations’. Retrieved 15 July 2013 from http://www.ncnk.org/resources/briefing-papers/all-briefing-papers/dprk-diplomatic-relations Google Scholar
The Telegraph (2002), ‘N Korea: US wants to talk’. Retrieved 20 July 2013 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1417317/N-Korea-US-wants-to-talk.html Google Scholar
Verbeek, B. and Zaslove, A. (2015). The impact of populist radical right parties on foreign policy: the Northern League as a junior coalition partner in the Berlusconi Governments’, European Political Science Review 7: 525–546.Google Scholar
Voeten, E. (2004), ‘Resisting the lonely superpower: responses of states in the United Nations to U.S. dominance’, The Journal of Politics 66: 729–754.Google Scholar
Volkens, A., Lehmann, P., Merz, N., Regel, S., Werner, A., Lacewell, O.P. and Schultze, H. (2013), The Manifesto Data Collection. Manifesto Project (MRG/CMP/MARPOR), Berlin: Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung.Google Scholar
Wagner, W (2002), ‘The subnational foundations of the European Parliament’, Journal of International Relations and Development 5: 24–36.Google Scholar
Wagner, W. and Onderco, M. (2014), ‘Accommodation or confrontation? Explaining differences in policies towards Iran’, International Studies Quarterly 58: 717–728.Google Scholar
Waltz, K.N. (1993), ‘The emerging structure of international politics’, International Security 18: 44–79.Google Scholar
Wiener, A. (2007), ‘The dual quality of norms and governance beyond the state: sociological and normative approaches to “interaction”’, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 10: 47–69.Google Scholar
Woldendorp, J., Keman, H. and Budge, I. (1993), ‘Political data 1945-1990-party government in 20 democracies’, European Journal of Political Research 24: 1–119.Google Scholar
Woldendorp, J., Keman, H. and Budge, I. (2011), ‘Party government in 40 democracies 1945–2008. Composition-duration-personnel’, Dataset. Retrieved 15 July 2015 from http://www.fsw.vu.nl/nl/wetenschappelijke-afdelingen/politicologie/medewerkers-pol/woldendorp/party-government-data-set/index.asp.Google Scholar
Wood, M.C. (1998), ‘The interpretation of security council resolutions’, Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law 2: 73–95.Google Scholar
Worre, P. and Han, I. (2012), ‘Six-plus-one party talks? The EU and the denuclearization of North Korea’. Retrieved 13 August 2013 from http://jpi.or.kr/contents/?mid=EN1613 Google Scholar
Young, J. (1999), The Exclusive Society: Social Exclusion, Crime, and Difference in Late Modernity, London: Sage.Google Scholar
Zürn, M. (2014), ‘The politicization of world politics and its effects: eight propositions’, European Political Science Review 6: 47–71.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Onderco and Wagner supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Onderco and Wagner supplementary material(File)
File 18.7 KB