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Shutting Down the Kaesong Industrial Complex: A “Coalitional Bargaining” Framework
Author(s) -
Kim In Seong,
Cho Hyun Koo
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
asian politics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.193
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1943-0787
pISSN - 1943-0779
DOI - 10.1111/aspp.12434
Subject(s) - shutdown , shut down , sanctions , alliance , legitimacy , politics , government (linguistics) , political science , business , political economy , economics , international trade , law , engineering , linguistics , philosophy , nuclear engineering
The South Korean government unexpectedly shut down the Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC) on February 10, 2016. This article seeks to explain why the KIC shutdown happened when it did. It argues, using a Coalition Bargaining framework, that is, a combination of financial regulatory harmonization against Weapons of Mass Destruction and the U.S.‐ROK‐Japan alliance politics, led to the shutdown. According to our framework, the timing of the KIC shutdown has to be seen in light of the emerging trilateral coordination after the December 28 Accord on the issue of comfort women and the introduction of much stronger secondary sanctions on North Korea by the United States. Together, these two initiatives forced South Korea’s Park Geun Hye administration to choose the KIC shutdown in return for higher political legitimacy offered by the Accord. In our view, the coalitional dynamic leading up to the KIC shutdown would have been unlikely under other administrations or with different sequencing of events.