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From plastic to peace: Overcoming public antipathy through environmental cooperation

2021 - 2023

Kansai University, Korea University, Kyoto University


Breve descripción
Citizen distrust towards the rival country is commonly observed in protracted international rivalries, thus undermining the pursuit of meaningful cooperation. In order to understand how governments can nurture a public opinion base that is more supportive of cooperation with the rival country, this academic study researches potential micro-level cooperation spillover in the context of the longstanding rivalry between Japan and Korea. Our survey-based experiment found that information about cooperation on marine plastic pollution shaped the public’s willingness to cooperate in terms of the economy and security. Our study is one of few studies that empirically examine the role of the environment in fostering peace.

Propósito principal
Pollution control / remediation (air, soil, water),
Clean-up / waste management,
Punto de entrada para el diálogo y la mediación entre grupos en conflicto,
Trust building between conflicting groups

Otros beneficios esperados
Food security
Increased stocks for fishing and hunting

Plastic waste in Sea of Japan/East Sea, 2019. Credit: East Asia Forum.

Contexto de conflicto
The Japan–Korea relationship can be regarded as a hard case for bringing about
changes in the attitudes of citizens toward each other’s country due to the longstanding mutual hostility between the two countries. Their bilateral relationship has long been marred by diplomatic conflict over their colonial past. Their relationship further deteriorated in 2018 when the Korean Supreme Court ordered Japanese companies involved in wartime forced labor to compensate Korean laborers. In 2019, Japan imposed export restrictions on electronics materials essential to the Korean semiconductor industry, which escalated into a trade war involving nationwide boycotts and several WTO disputes. Despite the mounting material cost of the trade war, the governments on both sides remain firm in their initial positions (as of April 2022). According to a recent survey, only 11% of the Japanese and 17.5% of South Koreans reported having a positive feeling toward each other as a people; trust in each other’s politicians was even lower, with only 2.5% of Japanese respondents saying that they trusted the South Korean President and only 0.9% of Koreans trusting the Japanese Prime Minister.3 This widespread distrust represents a major obstacle for cooperation and a challenge for governments who want to resolve costly rivalry disputes without political repercussions.

Contribuciones a la paz y la seguridad
In this study, we argue that cooperation over environmental problems shared by rival countries can be used to generate cooperation spillover. In particular, when environmental cooperation meets the following two conditions:

  • Environmental cooperation that provides tangible benefits for human lives can serve as an effective trigger, where the benefits must be apparent to a broader public.
  • Environmental cooperation can challenge negative stereotypes when it is previously unknown to and unanticipated by the public.We argue that highlighting this expert-level cooperation and its benefits can be an effective trigger for cooperation spillover.

Reported elements of good practice

We suggest a viable strategy for overcoming public antipathy in international rivalries. Our finding from the Korean sample shows that publicizing cooperation with the rival country over less politically contentious issues such as the environment can develop a public opinion base that is more supportive of collaboration in other, more contentious areas such as security. This suggests that a government seeking to improve the relationship with the rival country can strategically link low politics cooperation and hard politics agendas when communicating with both domestic and foreign citizens. This way, the government can trigger issue spillovers in public attitudes towards rivalry cooperation.

Desafíos reportados

First, while we discussed two possible mechanisms for cooperation spillover (changes in beliefs and rational extrinsic reciprocity), we did not empirically differentiate them. Another important yet underexplored aspect of cooperation spillover is its temporal dynamics; that is, how long the overall cooperative attitudes triggered by soft issue cooperation last. Lastly, we could not fully account for the asymmetric findings between our two countries.

Lista de Verificación
No, the NbS has not been evaluated for its environmental impact
Evaluación del impacto en la paz y la seguridad: se ha identificado un impacto positivo en la paz y la seguridad.
Consultation of peace & security expert
Conflict analysis
No community involvement
Programación sin género e inclusiva
No sustainability in case of increased violence

Detalles prácticos de implementación.
We first presented to all respondents information explaining that marine plastic pollution is a common environmental problem for the two countries: ‘The level of plastic pollution in the Sea of Japan/East Sea surrounding Korea and Japan is one of the highest in the world. Due to the circulation of the ocean currents, plastic waste from Korea and Japan reaches the coastal waters of the other country, posing a common challenge for the two countries.’ We then informed all of the respondents of a hypothetical government policy proposal on plastic bottle taxes. To this end, we asked the respondents about their attitudes towards cooperating with Korea/Japan on four areas in a randomized order: human exchange, trade, investment, and security.

Método de seguimiento de los impactos ambientales y de paz.
To test our hypotheses, we designed a survey experiment that involved two information treatments. The surveys were conducted online. The environmental impacts were not monitored.

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