Chang, Jiyoung (2025). Hope and conciliatory gestures in adversarial relationships: an analysis of South Korea’s conciliatory gestures towards North Korea under president Kim Dae-Jung and president Park Geun-hye (1998-2016). University of Birmingham. Ph.D.
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Chang2025PhD.pdf
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Abstract
Why do some decision-makers, even when facing an adversary, respond not through threats and coercions but by devising conciliatory gestures? This PhD thesis aims to explore the role of hope in shaping conciliatory gestures in adversarial relationships. The main arguments of this thesis are as follows: I argue that (1) bringing hope explicitly into the debate helps us broaden our understanding of decision-makers’ behaviours in devising conciliatory gestures, (2) a decision-maker who experiences hope adopts unconditional conciliatory gestures, (3) a decision-maker who experiences hope interprets and responds to an adversary’s defection in a different way than conventional accounts argue.
This thesis aims to develop the theory of hope in a conciliatory process, which includes the ‘conceptualisation of hope’ and ‘the role of hope in shaping conciliatory gestures.’ Using the method of documentary analysis and elite interview, I conduct case studies to evaluate the theory against two of Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea)’s conciliatory gestures towards the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea): the Sunshine Policy and Trustpolitik. We can see different types of conciliatory gestures and clear variations between the presence/absence of hope by the state leaders, President Kim Dae-jung and President Park Geun-hye. I examine the theoretical framework against these two cases and investigate the role of hope in a conciliatory process in IR.
| Type of Work: | Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.) | |||||||||
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| Award Type: | Doctorates > Ph.D. | |||||||||
| Supervisor(s): |
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| Licence: | All rights reserved | |||||||||
| College/Faculty: | Colleges > College of Social Sciences | |||||||||
| School or Department: | Department of Political Science and International Studies | |||||||||
| Funders: | None/not applicable | |||||||||
| Subjects: | J Political Science > JZ International relations | |||||||||
| URI: | http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/16109 |
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