Past Traumatic Experience and Formation of Foreign Policy Preferences

• In Event: Nuclear Politics, Experimental Research, and the Korean Peninsula

Abstract

What explains the formation of foreign policy preferences? Shifting the attention from the cue-taking models of foreign policy, I explore the role of past experience as a stable source of foreign policy preference formation. I study how the type of experience of the atomic bombings differently shapes the source and strength of foreign policy preferences related to nuclear weapons. I argue that the direct experience of atomic bombings shapes strong atomic aversion based on the belief in the inhumanity and immorality of nuclear weapons, but indirect experience shapes weak atomic aversion. I test my argument by collecting an original sample of South Korean atomic bomb survivors and their control groups who experienced the atomic bombings through indirect non-behavioral information. Contrary to the control groups, atomic bomb survivors possess strong policy preferences against the use of nuclear weapons, and these policy preferences are much less conditional upon the utility calculations of nuclear strikes. However, atomic bomb survivors’ opposition to the acquisition of nuclear weapons is not as strong as the opposition to the use of nuclear weapons.

Author

• Sangyong Son, New York University