The Politics of U.S.-Korea Civil Nuclear Cooperation

The success of the U.S.-ROK civil nuclear negotiations, concluded on June 15, 2015, was not at all guaranteed from the start. At the outset of negotiations, the two sides appeared to have little in common on the key issues that mattered. This report derived four framing contexts for the success of the negotiations. The two countries needed to find the overlap in positions in each of these contexts. Moreover, they had to guard against “negative reverberation”—outside issues that could negatively impact and throw askew the overlapping win-sets. The four framing contexts are (1) the global context of the negotiation; (2) the context of the U.S.-ROK alliance; (3) the negotiation strategies; and (4) the reverberation context. Drawing on the lessons learned during the negotiations, the authors draw some conclusions for the ratification and implementation of the agreement.

 

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Victor Cha
Senior Vice President for Asia and Korea Chair

Marie DuMond