Asymmetry of power and attention in alliance politics: the US–Republic of Korea case

ABSTRACT

While power asymmetry typically defines security relationships between allies, there exist other forms of asymmetry that influence alliance politics. In order to illustrate how they can shape policy outcomes that cannot be explained solely through the lens of power capabilities, the authors examine the role of relative attention that each side pays to the alliance. It is their central argument that since the client state has a greater vested interest in the alliance and given that attention depends on interest/need, the client state can leverage attention to get its way. By analysing two specific cases, the 2002 South Korean schoolgirls tragedy and the 2008 beef protests—instances where the South Koreans succeeded in compelling US concessions—the authors show that because the alliance was more central to the client state's agendas, there existed an asymmetry of attention that offered leveraging opportunities for the weaker ally. In this study, the authors emphasise the role of media attention as a key variable, and seek to contribute to debates on weaker party leverage in asymmetrical alliances.

KEYWORDS:

• Alliance politics
• anti-Americanism
• asymmetry of attention
• asymmetry of power
• media in international relations
• US–Republic of Korea relations

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank David Straub, Donald Keyser, John Ciorciari, Uk Heo, and Seohyun Park for comments on earlier drafts.

Notes

1. While Womack focuses on border allies that have a history of antagonistic war, his general theory of asymmetrical misperception and attention makes for an interesting addition to this theoretical framework.

2. For example, Gitlin (1980, 7) describes framing as ‘persistent patterns of cognition, interpretation, and presentation, of selection, emphasis, and exclusion, by which symbol-handlers routinely organize discourse'.

3. A classic example of priming is when citizens are asked whether they approve or disapprove of the current leader. Those who have seen news stories about national defence will give general evaluations of that leader which are influenced more heavily by their evaluations of the leader's performance on the defence issue (see, for instance, Iyengar and Kinder 1987; Valentino, Hutchings, and White 2002; Zaller 1992).

4. Sanger (2009) asserts that although the media have an agenda-setting capacity, many journalists contend that the government also affects media selection and coverage of key issues.

5. Cha (2004) suggests that while policy coordination was relatively restored, with the ROK agreement to press for the US-formulated complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement approach, the two governments remained suspicious of each other's intentions.

6. One may argue for reversal of the attention role because the USA often views the North Korea threat as far worse than South Korea. However, the nuclear issue is not really a case of a difference in degree of attention between the two publics, but of different perspectives and perceived national interests. The USA does indeed focus more on the nuclear issue (than it does on other Korea issues) because of its role as the world's leading nuclear power and because of its mission historically to prevent other countries from becoming nuclear weapons states. In South Korea, conservatives actually hold views similar to those of most Americans about the threat that North Korea poses to the South in general, and about nuclear weapons in particular, while progressives have a different perspective. But both conservative and progressive members of the Korean media and public pay a great deal of attention to the nuclear issue in absolute terms.

7. These figures, among others, are part of a more comprehensive study that examines the differing perceptions on the part of each alliance member. We use coverage in three US dailies (the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal) and two Korean dailies—one conservative (Choson Ilbo) and one progressive (Hankyoreh Shinmoon)—to reflect the ideological divide in Korean society as discussed here (see Shin 2010).

8. In the current journalistic environment, even high-profile, well-respected journalists may lose their job if a lack of solid research (or other factors) contributes to a perception of bias. This was the case with CBS news anchor Dan Rather, who, during the 2004 presidential election, used memos of questionable credibility to suggest that President George W. Bush had received preferential treatment in the National Guard during the Vietnam War.

9. Our study, at the outset, might seem like we simply picked two unusual events in alliance relations to prove our central arguments. While the two cases are certainly good examples of the attention variable, there are a number of other cases that similarly show the importance of asymmetry of attention. For instance, the Status of Forces Agreement revision negotiations in 2000 are a good example. Here, US officials saw no need for a revision, but eventually agreed amidst a large public outcry surrounding American soldiers’ alleged sexual harassment of a Korean woman. Likewise, the issue of the fighter-jet purchase from the USA is another example. In 2001, Korea was in the process of securing fighter jets, and many in the media reported as if Korea had no choice but to buy US fighters at inflated prices due to the asymmetrical alliance relationship. Ultimately, Korea did purchase the US equipment, but in recent years the Korean government has been diversifying its arms purchases to include purchases from Israel, Russia and Europe (for an excellent discussion of several similarly important events related to the US–ROK alliance, see Straub 2015).

10. OhMyNews founder Oh Yeon Ho's purported logic for starting the citizen online newspaper was his perception that the Korean news media were ideologically imbalanced, with conservative media strains holding an 80 percent advantage in news coverage. His goal was to correct this asymmetrical coverage and bring it to ‘50–50’ (French 2003).

11. Koreans’ widespread use of the Internet in disseminating the news further amplified attention to the incident and fuelled a public outcry. In 2002, a remarkable 57.4 percent of all Korean households had a broadband Internet connection. Several studies note the decisive role of the Internet in circulating coverage of the schoolgirls tragedy, as well as in providing a forum for building consensus and organising offline protests. As noted above, the online newspaper OhMyNews, which drew about 2.7 million page views a day after starting its news service and pioneered ‘citizen journalism’, was particularly instrumental in shaping and precipitating public opinion on the issue (for more information, see Kang 2009; Song 2007).

12. In his personal letter to us on August 5, 2015, David Straub recalls the situation as follows: ‘I assume that very few Americans were advising the President to make an apology and I further assume that they felt that a Presidential apology was not appropriate because (1) making a Presidential apology for a straightforward accident would set a precedent not only in Korea but also in other countries, and (2) it would reinforce in Koreans’ minds (incorrectly in American minds) that the United States as a government had done something to apologize for, when in fact (from an American perspective) the incident was an accident that occurred during U.S. military activities in service to the alliance and Korea and that in the nature of things accidents sometimes will occur. I don't have documentary proof but it seems virtually certain the President conveyed the apology only because of Korean public and media opinion and his desire to “manage” the alliance relationship. One may also wonder if the U.S. apologized because they felt it had done “something shameful” and was concerned about how it was perceived on the world stage. In fact, Clinton had earlier apologized to Japan for the gang-rape of a Japanese schoolgirl. Unlike the Okinawa case though, the Presidential apology to Koreans over the schoolgirl tragedy occurred with no pressure outside of Korea. Globally, it was widely ignored and seen as nothing more than a mere traffic accident with no reason for an American apology' (for more on this, see Straub 2015).

13. The Internet also played a significant role in accelerating information transfer and mobilising large-scale protest. This time, with two-thirds of Koreans equipped with mobile phones and near complete Internet penetration, the MBC story was widely and rapidly circulated via cyberspace (see Han 2009).

14. On April 18, 2008, the South Korean government agreed to relax restrictions on beef imports from the USA. On June 21, 2008, the then South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, offered a formal apology to South Korean citizens after announcing the results of the renegotiation with the USA.