South Korean Perceptions of Unification: Evidence from an Experimental Survey

Homelands and Nationalism

“…A critical finding of this research is that offering material incentives to compromise over the homeland yields a backlash rather than encourages compromise, but that symbolic concessions can facilitate conflict resolution (Ginges et al 2007; Sheikh, Ginges, and Atran 2013). Similarly consistent with the possibility that the ideational value of homelands tends to trump material concerns, Rich (2019) finds that support for unification remains strong among Korean survey participants, even when primed with its anticipated costs. Other work on territorial compromise from the perspective of prospect theory has investigated various ways of ameliorating the “state of loss” (Gayer et al 2009) or the negative emotions involved with compromise over homeland territory (Halperin et al 2013).…”

The effects of infotainment on public reaction to North Korea using hybrid text mining: Content analysis, machine learning-based sentiment analysis, and co-word analysis

“…South Koreans have perceived North Korea very negatively because they primarily associated North Korea with war, nuclear weapons, and military (Kim et al, 2015). Young adults are particularly skeptical about reunification in that they concern its cost more than benefits (Rich, 2019).…”

Perception of the probability of Korean unification amongst South Korea’s elderly population

“…Ever since the extraordinary meeting between the South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong Un in April 2018, there has been a growing measure of confidence among watchers across the Korean Peninsula, suggesting the prospects of a peaceful relationship towards an ultimate unification. Data from the Korean General Social Survey (KGSS) for 2003 to 2012 reliably shows that a majority of about 67%-plus of people asserts that unification is somewhat or very necessary, with disparity based on age and political ideology (Rich, 2019;KGRS, 2013). Similarly, research data from the Asan Institute for 2011 to 2014 discovered comparable margins of over 70% expressed their interest in reunification, with respondents in the 2010 Asan survey expressing a slight majority of about 52.6%, even after the sinking of the South Korean submarine Cheonan, which was attributed to a North Korean torpedo (Rich, 2019;Jiyoon et al, 2015).…”

“…Data from the Korean General Social Survey (KGSS) for 2003 to 2012 reliably shows that a majority of about 67%-plus of people asserts that unification is somewhat or very necessary, with disparity based on age and political ideology (Rich, 2019;KGRS, 2013). Similarly, research data from the Asan Institute for 2011 to 2014 discovered comparable margins of over 70% expressed their interest in reunification, with respondents in the 2010 Asan survey expressing a slight majority of about 52.6%, even after the sinking of the South Korean submarine Cheonan, which was attributed to a North Korean torpedo (Rich, 2019;Jiyoon et al, 2015). Arguments about perceptions of Korean unification are pervasive in South Korean survey research, demonstrating that most South Koreans support the unification.…”

“…Studies on South Korean youths' perceptions of North Korea and unification have argued that South Koreans' perception of the threats from the North directly affects their perception of North Korea and ultimate unification . Other studies have assessed South Korean perceptions of unification (Rich, 2019), including the psychosocial aspects of Korean reunification based on the explicit and implicit attitudes and identities of South Koreans and North Korean defectors (Kim et al, 2001). While several factors and motivations on citizen's perceptions may account for South Koreans perceptions as a whole -be it social, political, economic or cultural -on their desire for unification, these existing studies provide limited information on a key constituent of society, namely the elderly.…”