Getting Past the Past: Korea's Transcendence of the Anti-Japan Policy Frontier

摘要

Why are some nations able to move beyond historical hatreds to have productive relationships with former enemies while others seem bound by the past, unable to make policy choices that are in their "objective" interest? This article explores Korea's decision to normalize diplomatic relations with Japan in 1965 and finds, inter alia, that US pressure for normalization was not the key causal variable that it has been described as elsewhere. I propose that the concept of policy frontiers - that is, socially constructed constraints on realistic policy choices -reveals that a fuller explanation of Korea's decision to normalize relations with Japan resulted from a process in which policy entrepreneurs interact with their political systems to exploit opportunities created by critical junctures.