Rapprochement amid Mounting Security Concerns: The 1998-2007 Inter-Korean Reconciliation as Hegemonic Projects

The 1998-2007 inter-Korean reconciliation was paradoxical because there were aggravating military tensions during the same period. To solve the security puzzle, this paper employs a Gramscian approach and argues that the reconciliation was pursued as hegemonic projects by the ruling political groups in North and South Korea. In South Korea, the economic crisis in 1997 led counter-hegemonic liberal nationalists to take political power, and the new ruling political group implemented the engagement policy toward Pyongyang to attain hegemony. In North Korea, the existing ruling political group sought to reconcile with Seoul, mostly for material gains to maintain hegemony by stopping the ongoing economic crisis from developing into a political crisis without a full-scale reform of the system. In the process, each capitalized on unification nationalism, which had a strong national- popular force because of the division of Korea. The rapprochement was carried out primarily to exhibit their contributions to unification, which could be significantly conducive to their winning the domestic struggle for hegemony.