Politicians, Electoral Law & International Bargaining Approaches: A Case Study of Korea‐U.S. Agricultural Trade Negotiation
Authors: An Yong Heun 
Published: October 2008

The purpose of this paper is to explain the change in the Korean government̂s bargaining approach from a soft‐line to a hard‐line approach. This paper introduced a two‐level explanation to find an explanatory variable. The two‐level explanation concentrates on the ratification process connecting domestic to international politics. This explanation holds that strong domestic pressure forces a negotiator to employ a hard‐line stance, whereas weak domestic pressure makes possible a concessive soft‐line approach. The two‐level theorists suggest conditions that create strong domestic pressure. Those are the features of bargaining issues and the existence of an electoral system that strengthens some domestic constituents' power by over‐representing them. The homogenous bargaining issue and domestic constituents' over‐represented electoral power produce strong domestic pressure. Hence a negotiator is inclined to take a hard‐line stance, when the feature of a bargaining issue is homogenous and a domestic group whose interest is closely related to the bargaining issue is over‐represented by the electoral system.

This paper argues that these conditions are not sufficient. Under an electoral law permitting mobilized voting, these variables do not yield strong domestic pressure during the ratification process. It is because politicians, who participate in the ratification process, are able to get votes by means of mobilization, and they, therefore, are less responsive to domestic constituents' demands so as to get their votes. We found this to be the situation in the case of the Korean government̂s adoption of a soft‐line stance.

In 1993, a new electoral law was proposed to hinder politicians from mobilizing votes with money. The new law led to changes in politicians' behavior. Politicians had no choice but to appeal to their constituents with a policy consistent with their constituents' interests and demands in order to get their votes. Politicians' changed behavior enabled such variables as the feature of a bargaining issue and a domestic constituent̂s electoral power to produce strong domestic constraints, as the two‐level game theorists argue. As a result, the Korean government changed its bargaining approach from a soft‐line to a hard‐line one after the reform of the electoral law.

To show the effect of the change in the electoral law on a negotiator's adoption of a bargaining approach, this paper considers such variables as the nature of a bargaining issue and an electoral system that over‐represents some domestic constituents. The selection of Korean trade negotiation cases allows this paper to put those variables under scrutiny. The cases also enable us to consider the international variable such as the United States' international pressure. There were no variations in those variables in Korean cases.

This work has useful implications for cases in which a country undergoing the transition to democracy negotiates with other countries. Democratization creates new democratic laws and institutions. New laws and institutions in countries like Korea may push politicians into responding more to their domestic supporters' demands than before. As a result, they may create a situation in which “domestic politics and international relations become entangled.