Discomforting Comfort Women: The Imcomplete Combustion of Reconciliation

Abstract

In spite of growing economic and social ties between Korea and Japan, the polemic of comfort women remains as a thorny subject even to touch. The demands to resolute comfort women issue come not only from domestic constituents of both countries but also from each other. From 1990s the issue has been widely discussed by the two countries NGOs and governments and several apologetic statements and attempts to resolute the issue were made during that time. However, despite the efforts of two countries governments had made, those endeavors did not satisfy neither the Korean side, nor the Japanese side. When the issue reemerged in 2007 by troublesome remarks of Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and his cabinet members, new phase of comfort women issue has begun. Internationalization of comfort women issue has been rapidly conducted by Korean and Japanese civil organizations, and those efforts has exerted huge influence on governments of both countries. Utilizing two-level game theory and the concept of win-sets, this thesis examines Japans politics of apology and Koreas politics of apology acceptance. Korean and Japanese governments decision making process is heavily influenced by the strong civil organizations that show robust connections with general public as well as politicians. This thesis puts emphasis on the NGOs influence on politics of apology and how they affect the sizes of each countrys win-sets. Finally, after examining complicated mechanisms among government, civil organizations, and international forces, this thesis tries to find adequate measures that can expand the win-set sizes of the two countries.