Since Korea's transition to democracy in 1987, Korean leaders have become increasingly confrontational toward Japan, with such steps ranging from verbal threats filled with hawkish rhetoric to material threats, such as displays of military force and threats of actually using it. To explain South Korean leaders’ hawkish approach to Japan, we build a theory of “prospective diversion” by combining insights from the diversionary theory of international conflict and prospect theory. We argue that foreign policy leaders have a strong tendency to overvalue political losses relative to comparable gains in their approval ratings. As a result, they are inclined to take risk-seeking diplomatic actions toward foreign adversary to avoid further losses. By conducting statistical analyses and developing case studies of Korean leaders’ confrontational policy decisions regarding Japan, we present empirical findings consistent with our hypothesis that Korean leaders are inclined to engage in prospective diversion toward Japan when they suffer domestic losses. This article provides an enhanced understanding of the domestic political foundation of South Korean leaders’ increasingly contentious attitude toward Japan.

The paper begins with a simple question of "why do international rivalries persist over time?" To explain the causes of rivalry persistence, the paper develops "a modified two-level game approach" and tests the hypotheses drawn from the approach for the case of the 2 nd Greco-Turkish rivalry, 1958. The approach postulates that the rivalry maintenance is the result of rival leaders' efforts to maximize their interest -i.e., staying in power-subject to external constraint-i.e., great power interventions-and internal constraint -i.e., the challenges from hard-line veto groups. By applying this approach to the 2nd Greco-Turkish rivalry, the paper finds that the leaders of the rivalry maintained their hostile relations partly because the U.S. prevented the leaders from resolving the issues under contention on the battlefields by intervening in the two rivals' military conflict with a threat to stop providing both military and political support and partly because the hard-line veto players within the rivals prevented the leaders from resolving the issues at the negotiation table by hinting of electoral punishment. Under these circumstances, the leaders of the Greco-Turkish rivalry found that maintaining the rivalry would best serve their interest. The findings offer a contribution toward an enhanced understanding of the maintenance process in international rivalries.

Korea's Japan policy has increasingly become inconsistent and even volatile across time. At the centre of the inconsistency is the Moon Jae-In government's GSOMIA policy. While starting his tenure by deciding to remain in the GSOMIA, the government made 180-degree turn and notified its intention not to renew the agreement when Japan announced export controls. But the decision was completely reversed within months when the government held off ending the agreement. What explains such inconsistency in Korea's Japan policy? To answer this question, the paper proposes a generic model of foreign policy inconsistency, which might be called 'two-level constraint model' and applies it to the case of Korea's GSOMIA policy. The central argument of the model is that the inconsistency in the countries' foreign policy is the result of shifts in foreign policy leaders' incentives, which are affected by the changes in the level of external-and internal political constraints they face. A crucial case study of the Moon Jae-In government's GSOMIA policy finds strong evidence that lends a support for the argument. The paper concludes by offering both a short summary and policy implications.

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