South Korean Cost Sensitivity and Support for Nuclear Weapons

Abstract

How do the costs of proliferation shape the public support for building nuclear weapons? Public opinion matters, especially in a democracy, because the masses can affect the nuclear policy choices that political elites make. Yet the existing literature on nuclear proliferation has not incorporated the public’s cost sensitivity in the analysis. We therefore do not fully understand the sources of public attitudes toward nuclearization. By fielding a novel survey experiment in South Korea, I found that the economic and human costs of economic sanctions and preventive strikes dampen South Koreans’ preferences for nuclear armament. Relative to the no-cost condition, economic and human costs reduce the support levels by 25.1% points and 19.4% points, respectively and in the case of combined costs the support decreases by 29.6% points. However, South Koreans still have relatively high levels of support for a nuclear arsenal even after the exposure to the costs of nuclearization. This implies that the rally effect resulting from hostile international responses may mitigate the negative cost effects to some degree. This study can contribute to the growing literature by providing new theoretical foundations and empirical results.

RESUMEN

¿De qué manera influyen los costes de proliferación sobre el apoyo público a la fabricación de armas nucleares? La opinión pública importa, especialmente en una democracia, debido a que las masas pueden influir sobre las decisiones en materia de política nuclear que toman las élites políticas. Sin embargo, la literatura existente sobre proliferación nuclear no ha incorporado la sensibilidad del público a los costes dentro de sus análisis. Por lo tanto, no tenemos una comprensión completa de las fuentes de las actitudes públicas hacia la nuclearización. Llevamos a cabo un novedoso experimento de encuesta en Corea del Sur, el cual nos permitió descubrir que los costes económicos y humanos de las sanciones económicas, así como los ataques preventivos, disminuyen las preferencias de los surcoreanos por el armamento nuclear. En lo referente a la condición de coste cero, los costes económicos y humanos reducen los niveles de apoyo en 25,1 y 19,4 puntos porcentuales, respectivamente. En el caso de los costes combinados, el apoyo disminuye en 29,6 puntos porcentuales. Sin embargo, conviene señalar que los surcoreanos todavía muestran niveles relativamente altos de apoyo a un arsenal nuclear, incluso después de la exposición a los costes de la nuclearización. Esto implica que el efecto de repunte resultante de las respuestas internacionales hostiles puede mitigar, en cierta medida, los efectos negativos de estos costes. Este estudio puede contribuir a la creciente literatura debido a que proporciona tanto nuevos fundamentos teóricos como resultados empíricos.

RESUME

Comment les coûts de la prolifération façonnent-ils le soutien public à la construction d’armes nucléaires ? L’opinion publique importe, notamment dans une démocratie, car les masses peuvent exercer une influence sur les choix des élites politiques en matière de politique nucléaire. Pourtant, la littérature existante sur la prolifération nucléaire n’a pas intégré la sensibilité du public aux coûts dans l’analyse. Aussi ne comprenons-nous pas pleinement les sources des attitudes publiques à l’égard de la nucléarisation. En menant une expérience de sondage inédite en Corée du Sud, je constate que les coûts économiques et humains des sanctions économiques et des attaques préventives atténuent les préférences des Sud-Coréens pour l’armement nucléaire. Par rapport à la condition de coût nul, les coûts économiques et humains réduisent respectivement les niveaux de soutien de 25,1 points et 19,4 points. Quand on combine ces coûts, le soutien diminue de 29,6 points. Cependant, les Sud-Coréens présentent encore des niveaux de soutien relativement élevés pour l’arsenal nucléaire, même après exposition aux coûts de la nucléarisation. Aussi l’effet de rassemblement créé par l’hostilité des réponses internationales pourrait-il atténuer les effets négatifs des coûts dans une certaine mesure. Cette étude peut contribuer à la littérature croissante sur le sujet en proposant de nouvelles fondations théoriques et de nouveaux résultats empiriques.

Keywords:

• Nuclearization
• public cost sensitivity
• human and economic costs
• economic sanctions
• preventive strikes
• rally around the flag effect

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 If South Korea goes nuclear, Seoul is likely to adopt a proliferation strategy that could minimize the costs of weaponization. As Narang (2022) points out, there are broadly four types of proliferation strategy: (1) hedging, (2) sprinting, (3) sheltered, and (4) hiding. I argue that South Korea is likely to choose the sheltered strategy. The crux of this strategy is the endorsement of the United States. Under Washington’s protection, South Korea could minimize various types of costs of proliferation. The experimental design, however, does not postulate South Korea’s sheltered proliferation strategy given Washington’s strong opposition to South Korea’s nuclear weaponization (White House 2023).

2 Recall that this survey was administered in December 2020, when President Moon Jae in took office. Survey respondents might think that it is unlikely that South Korea will pursue an independent nuclear arsenal under a liberal government and question whether the hypothetical scenario is plausible. Thus, setting the year in 2024 is helpful to prevent a priming effect that would lead to an incorrect estimation. Respondents knew that President Moon’s presidency will end in 2022 and they did not know who will take office in 2024.

3 In 1971, Washington unilaterally decided to withdraw the 7th Infantry division of United States Forces Korea (USFK) and planned further withdrawals in 1971 (Hayes and Moon 2011).

4 It is debated whether the U.S. would sanction South Korea if Seoul decided to go nuclear. Some argue that it is possible that Washington could sanction Seoul, but others assert that a friendly U.S. administration might preclude UN sanctions and a U.S. president could legally waive sanctions triggered by U.S. law (Highsmith 2023). Also, Lind and Press (2021) argue that U.S. leaders can provide diplomatic cover to make South Korea’s nuclearization safe. Specifically, they point out that Washington could oppose any calls in the UN Security Council to impose economic sanctions on South Korea. Nonetheless, I made the hypothetical scenario very conservative that the U.S. would sanction South Korea because South Korea’s nuclearization would have a serious impact on the U.S.-led nonproliferation regime.

5 I estimated the economic shocks of the 1997 financial crisis based on the total amount of supplementary budgets that the South Korean government executed in 1998 and 1999. In 1998, the South Korean government executed the first and second supplementary budgets of 12.8 trillion and 12.2 trillion Korean won, respectively. In the following year, the South Korean government executed the third and fourth supplementary budgets of 2.8 trillion and 2.7 trillion Korean won. The South Korean government thus spent a total of 30.5 trillion Korean won, which is equivalent to approximately 25 billion U.S. dollars.

6 Note that the rally effect is not randomly assigned across different groups. This implies that this survey experiment can not concretely tease out the rally effect. Future studies can explore such an effect by randomly assigning it to different groups of respondents.

7 The present information in the no-cost group captures the ideal situation that South Korea will not face any costs of proliferation. The results show that the support for nuclearization in this group is 73.4%. This finding does not exactly capture the public opinion per se because the respondents were intentionally told that economic and human costs will not occur as a result of nuclaerization. In an ordinary public opinion survey, respondents are simply asked whether they support building nuclear weapons without receiving detailed background information. Nonetheless, this information is meaningful since the results are consistent with current public opinion polls.