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Abstract
South Koreans' attitudes towards other countries and toward cooperating with them have changed markedly over the last ten years. Feelings about the United States have fluctuated from highly critical during the Bush administration to extremely positive as the United States (US)'s security umbrella was highlighted in the wake of North Korea's 2010 sinking of the Cheonan and shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. China, once viewed as a partner in politics and industry, has increasingly become a pariah as it fails to address political problems with North Korea (DPRK). These changes represent the public's evaluation of other countries and their policies in light of Koreans' core orientations and foreign policy goals.
Most previous studies have attempted to extrapolate Koreans' attitudes about foreign policy by drawing on Korea's history and ascribing motivation to reflexive nationalism. But such exegetical accounts oversimplify public opinion. This dissertation demonstrates the South Korean public holds well-formed and stable national orientations and foreign policy goal sets that predict Koreans' foreign policy preferences. Using multiple public opinion surveys, I demonstrate that Korean national attitudes are multifaceted, and closely which closely approximate those found in the US and Japan. These dimensions, which I call national orientations, can be described as protectionism, international engagement, and national pride.
Koreans foreign policy goals cluster around economic growth, security, and solving global problems. These national orientations and goal sets help predict preferences for foreign policy, but goals prove to be more useful than traditional conceptions of Korean protectionist nationalism. Further, I show that Koreans evaluate other countries based on perceptions of shared values and a universal standard of cooperation. Evaluations of traditional soft power elements are demonstrated to have relatively small independent effects on Koreans' feelings about other countries.
These elements—values, goal sets, and feelings about other countries predict Koreans' preferences for entering into trade agreements and the use of American troops. International engagement orientation and goal clusters are found to best predict Koreans' preferences except when under direct threat.
