WHY TREATIES MATTER: THE ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL EFFECTS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY TREATIES IN CHINA, JAPAN, AND KOREA A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Jung Mee Park August 2013 © 2013 JUNG MEE PARK WHY TREATIES MATTER: THE ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL EFFECTS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY TREATIES IN CHINA, JAPAN, AND KOREA Jung Mee Park, Ph. D. Cornell University 2013 ABSTRACT Conventional views on state-formation examined within nation political and resource constraints to assess changes that took place. In my dissertation, I explored how external stressors such as international treaties affected domestic legal reforms. By creating a dataset of 235 treaties involving European, Asian, North American, and South American states, I juxtaposed the restructuring process of three Asian countries – China, Japan, and Korea to global trends in trading and diplomacy. I used Chi- square tests of variance to deduce that geographic origins of the treaty partners affected the types of treaties signed and the level of symmetries for treaties. The year of when the treaties were signed also had an effect. Further, treaties tended towards mutual benefits around the early 20th century as cross-regional tensions declined. By the end of the 19th century, treaties specified to form categories such as arbitrage, consular, delimitation, and extradition treaties. China, Japan, and Korea’s varied turns in the 20th century address how even if external partners approached a nation with asymmetric levels of power, the way in which a nation addressed these provocations mattered. In times of external threats, a nation, restructuring its political and social infrastructures prevented the nation from losing its domestic sovereignty. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Jung Mee Park was born in Seoul, South Korea and moved to the United States in 1989. She graduated from Dunwoody High School in Atlanta, GA in 2001, where her favorite class was orchestra with Anne E. Page. At the University of Pennsylvania, she, as a Benjamin Franklin Scholar, double majored in Sociology and History, minored in Music, and earned a certificate in German. She spent the spring semester of 2004 in Berlin as an exchange student at the Freie Universtiät to study Max Weber and 19th century opera. In May 2005, she earned a bachelor’s degree magna cum laude with distinction in Sociology and wrote her honors thesis on Korean Christianity. In 2007, she received an M.A. in Quantitative Methods in Social Sciences from Columbia University in New York City and wrote her M.A. thesis on the organizational strategies of musical theatre in the early 20th century. Since moving to Ithaca, NY in August 2006, she found intellectual, social, professional, and personal treasures. After her thesis defense, she will be a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Korean Studies at the University of Southern California. iv For Young Hee and Hui Son Park, the greatest parents v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many people have helped me grow as a researcher and person during my time in Ithaca. First and foremost, I thank my advisor David Strang for always keeping his door open. I would also like to thank my committee members, Mabel Berezin and Katsuya Hirano for their intellectual acumen and personal warmth. I thank Paromita Sanyal for stepping in for my dissertation defense. My fellow graduate students, Chris Cameron, Laura Ford, Annetta Fotopoulos, James Golden, Emily Hoagland, Jennifer Todd, and to many other Cornellians who have made my time in Uris Hall entirely worthwhile. The help I received from my brilliant undergraduate researchers, Tracy Eisser, Em Xiao, and Brian Bencomo, was instrumental for the completion of this project. Also, I thank Becky Kosick and Eloy Rodriguez La Brada for discussing literature, language, and writing with me. Haim Bar and David Clement’s statistical expertise made available to me via the Cornell Statistical Consulting Unit was invaluable. My pre-Ithaca friends, Susan Arotsky, Miriam P. von Essen, Sonali Mishra, Erin Chun, Rachel Gottschalk, and my family – Young Hee, Hui Son, Susan, Yuji, and Kaylee encouraged me for years. My supervisor and friend, Kris Corda, gave me wonderful reprieve from the dissertation when I needed it. She is greatly responsible for the 8,968 cups of coffee and tea that I have had to finish the thesis. I owe Kris so much for granting me the opportunity to meet Kira Novakofski, Lindsay Waxman, Corey Ptak, and most importantly Everett Schlawin. Besides teaching me how to ride a bike, Everett and I vi shared much joyous occasions together. The support from everyone made writing a joy at times. And I will return to Ithaca for many visits. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 ....................................................................................................................................... 16 PROJECT OVERVIEW ................................................................................................................... 16 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................ 16 Limitations of the study .............................................................................................................................. 25 BIG CATEGORIES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS .................................................................................. 25 CONSTRUCTIVISM IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ................................................................................. 32 WORLD POLITY ................................................................................................................................................ 35 DIFFERING ORIENTATIONS TO LAW ........................................................................................................... 42 Western Legal Tradition ............................................................................................................................ 48 Unequal Treaties .......................................................................................................................................... 51 Treaty Interpretation ................................................................................................................................... 54 SOCIOLOGY OF LAW ....................................................................................................................................... 62 SOCIOLOGICAL STUDIES OF COLONIALISM ............................................................................................. 66 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................................... 73 CHAPTER 2 ....................................................................................................................................... 74 EMPIRICS OF EMPIRES: STUDY OF REGIONAL DIFFERENCES OVER TIME ........... 74 TREATY SELECTION PROCESS ...................................................................................................................... 74 ORGANIZATION OF SELECTED TREATIES .................................................................................................. 76 DESCRIPTION OF REGION-BASED DYADS ................................................................................................. 77 YEARS, DECADES, AND PERIODS ................................................................................................................ 78 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS .............................................................................................................................. 80 HYPOTHESES .................................................................................................................................................... 81 TYPES OF TREATIES ........................................................................................................................................ 83 Peace treaties ................................................................................................................................................. 86 Commerce and navigation treaties ........................................................................................................ 86 Friendship treaties ....................................................................................................................................... 87 Extradition treaties ...................................................................................................................................... 88 Arbitrage treaties ......................................................................................................................................... 89 Treaties of delimitation or annexation ................................................................................................. 90 Other treaties of interest ............................................................................................................................ 92 RESULTS FROM THE ANALYSIS OF KEY PROVISIONS .............................................................................. 92 THE ECONOMIC VARIABLES ......................................................................................................................... 93 Most-Favored Nation Clauses ...............................................................................................................