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Downloaded from Brill.Com09/30/2021 11:13:54AM Via Free Access 30 Only Shallow? Public Support for Development Cooperation in South Korea Asian International StudiesHan NaReview Kim andVol. Thomas21 No.2 Kalinowski (December 2020): 29-53 29 Received September 30, 2020 Revised December 3, 2020 Accepted December 14, 2020 Only Shallow? Public Support for Development Cooperation in South Korea Han Na Kim* and Thomas Kalinowski** This article examines the link between public support for and public knowledge about development cooperation in South Korea. Challenging previous research on established donor countries, we find that in Korea, there is a high level of public support for development cooperation but very little knowledge about it. We argue that this can be explained by three main factors. First, Korea recently transitioned from being a recipient of development aid to being a donor. Second, Korean development cooperation is conducted as a government-centred process with limited influence from civil society. Third, the dissemination of information on development cooperation is dominated by what we call “aid propaganda”, where aid is advertised primarily as a means of improving Korea’s national prestige, while the situation in the recipient countries of the Global South is largely ignored. Keywords: Development Cooperation, Public Opinion, South Korea, Media, Official Development Assistance, ODA, Public Communication * Ph.D. Candidate, First Author, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea; E-mail: [email protected] ** Professor, Corresponding Author, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea; E-mail: [email protected] DOI: 10.16934/isr.21.2.202012.29 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 11:13:54AM via free access 30 Only Shallow? Public Support for Development Cooperation in South Korea I. INTRODUCTION This paper examines the link between public support for development cooperation and knowledge about development cooperation in a new donor country, South Korea (hereafter Korea). Generally, it is assumed that there is a strong positive correlation between the support for development cooperation and the knowledge about development cooperation and the situation in the Global South (McDonnell, Lecomte, and Wegimont 2003). However, in this paper, our empirical findings for the case of Korea as a donor in development cooperation indicate that this correlation is very weak. We find that there is strong public support for development cooperation in Korea, while knowledge about development cooperation is very limited. In Korea, the public strongly supports foreign aid to the Global South, although the general knowledge and understanding of global poverty and development issues is limited, and public awareness of foreign aid is also low. Why is the Korean public supportive of development cooperation, even though their knowledge of the issue is low? We argue that the weak correlation between support and knowledge can be explained by three factors. First, Korea’s recent transformation from a recipient of foreign assistance to a donor has created general moral support for development cooperation from the people because many believe that Korea needs to give back and share its success. Second, the way that Korean development cooperation is conducted as a state-centred process with weak engagement by civil society and limited public scrutiny has prevented an active and critical discourse on this policy field. Development cooperation in Korea remains an area of government discretion and is employed as a tool of foreign policy, including as an international extension of industrial policies. Third, information on development cooperation has thus far been spread in an advertising style, highlighting the charity of Korean donors and the benefits for national reputation and business opportunities, while information about foreign aid and the problems of the developing world is limited. This “aid propaganda” prevents a deeper understanding of development cooperation while at the same time creating superficial support. Do public opinion and public knowledge about development cooperation matter? According to the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Office of Development Studies, “the system of international development cooperation cannot exist without broad-based political support” (Stern 1998, v). Spending taxpayers’ money for development cooperation depends on the support of citizens in donor countries. Thus, public opinion has at least the potential to influence aid allocation (Hurst, Tidwell, and Hawkins 2017). According to Stern’s study (1998), it is widely assumed that “building such support requires a basic understanding of the nature of people’s – the public’s – attitudes toward Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 11:13:54AM via free access Han Na Kim and Thomas Kalinowski 31 international development cooperation” (v). Consequently, monitoring public support – especially how domestic citizens view foreign aid – has become common practice not only for most traditional donor countries and major international organizations, but also for emerging donors (Cheng and Smyth 2016; Fransman and Solignac Lacomte 2004; McDonnell et al. 2003). In the background of these efforts, there is a shared perception that public support for official development assistance (ODA) is vital for securing ODA quantity and quality as well as its effectiveness (Collier 2007; Mosley 1985). The Korean government has also endeavoured to systematically monitor public opinion on a regular basis. Following a decline in the level of ODA after the Asian financial crisis in 1997, the first public survey on foreign aid was initiated by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) in 1999. To follow up this, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT)1 conducted an opinion leader survey targeted at field experts engaged in formulating and implementing ODA policy. The initial surveys conducted in those periods sought simply to monitor the level of public attention being paid ODA and the public’s awareness of Korea’s provision of aid to the Global South and to the implementing agencies (Kwon and Park 2012). However, as Korean ODA expenditure has increased by more than 107 times2 over the past 30 years since its ODA system was organised, ensuring public support for the increase in ODA spending was posited as one of the government’s policy priorities. Recognizing the salience of public support, KOICA undertook another public opinion poll in 2005, and MOFAT conducted surveys in 2008 and 2010. As the Framework Act on International Development Cooperation was enacted and the “Whole-of-government Strategy for Public Awareness of ODA” was established in 2009, the government began in earnest to conduct a regular (almost annual) National Survey on International Development Cooperation to gauge public support for and opinions of ODA policies. The survey intended to provide useful information related to ODA policy decision-making by asking citizens’ opinions about appropriate ODA volume, ODA effectiveness, priority regions and sectors, preferred implementing agencies, urgent issues in ODA policies, etc. (Kwon and Park 2012). Ⅱ. PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR KOREAN AID: A MILE WIDE BUT HOW DEEP? The Korean public holds favourable opinions of the principle of granting aid to the developing world. Despite its short history as an official donor and a member of OECD/DAC, recent 2019 polls indicate that a robust majority of Koreans (81.3 per cent) support an engaged Korean role in the world, a moral dimension to its foreign policy, and giving foreign aid (Kim 2019). Furthermore, Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 11:13:54AM via free access 32 Only Shallow? Public Support for Development Cooperation in South Korea 81.7 per cent of respondents believed that it is important to assist poor people in developing countries. This level of strong support in Korea is on par with those in other traditional donor countries that have longer aid-giving histories3. The mass public support for Korea’s development assistance is due primarily to its experience as a former recipient country (42.5 per cent) and contribution to poverty eradication in developing countries (32.3 per cent) (Kim 2019). Additionally, given that only half of respondents (50.1 per cent) stated that Korea is a developed economy (Park and Kim 2017), it is interesting that the recognition of national economic status4 did not have a substantial impact on the level of public support for ODA provision (Kwon and Park 2012). Historically, Korea had relatively few economic and political exchanges with countries in the Third World until the 1960s, especially geographically distant countries in Africa and Latin America, compared to traditional European donors that had a history of colonialism or geographical proximity. However, although most ordinary citizens have little knowledge about issues occurring in the developing world and limited experience with those countries, it is interesting that they are highly supportive of giving aid. More than one in three Koreans (38 per cent) are not aware that the Korean government is actually providing ODA (Kim 2019). Even among those who are aware of Korea’s role as a donor, most have poor awareness and knowledge of this development cooperation and problems in the Global South more generally. For instance, in terms of awareness of the global development agenda, the 2019 poll data shows that only 21.3 per cent of the Koreans polled were aware of the Sustainable Development Goals, and more than half of the respondents (54.6 per cent) were not aware of Korea’s OECD/DAC membership (Kim 2019)5. In addition, according to the survey results,
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