A Study on South Korea’s North Korea Policy Applying Punctuated Equilibrium

This study is to demonstrate convincingly that the theory of punctuated equilibrium has been applied to the policy of Korea, the only divided nation in the world, toward North Korea. A framework was build based on the model of Baumgartner & True, Jones(2006) and the change process in the policy toward North Korea divided into four stages of the policymaking for its structurization was investigated. The policy of South Korea toward North Korea has maintained the punctuated equilibrium in Lee Myeongbak administration followed by Park Geunhye administration since the sudden break due to Kim Daejung administration s sunshine policy and the visit to North Korea with cattle and the inter-Korean summit on June 15, 2000 have functioned as a positive feedback and an Incident of a tourist at Kumkang Mt. killed by shooting and the birth of Lee Myeongbak administration as a negative feedback. A regime is found to be a powerful agent forming a policy on North Korea when the policy images identified with ethnic homogeneity , mutual trust and cost-effectiveness depend on the changed regime. In this way, a government which has strongly monopolized the policies has derived a subsystem politics called the public-private policy council for aid to North Korea only at government level, which has been promoting the policies in an incrementalistic manner amid the swirl of macropolitics. Finally, if the practice of values for the policy on North Korea should be the goal of the policy makers, the theory of the limited rationality in policymaking as the absolute factor determining the satisfaction of the given goal, the external condition of the United States might be applied.