Can Expert Information Change Public Attitudes toward Nuclear Proliferation?: Evidence from South Korea

Abstract

Previous studies of nuclear proliferation have focused on elites’ motivations to acquire or forgo nuclear weapons without paying due attention to the role of public opinion. As a result, there has been no systematic study that evaluates the relative effectiveness of different proliferation or non-proliferation constraints in public attitude toward nuclear armament. South Korea is a unique case of nuclear forbearance where strong public demands for nuclear armament coexist with elites’ opposition to nuclearization. To evaluate the relative effectiveness of different proliferation or non-proliferation information, we conducted a survey experiment in which subjects were asked to change their initial positions and make donation choices after hearing randomly assigned conflicting expert messages. The results of the experiment show that conflicting expert information significantly changes public attitudes toward nuclear armament. We also found that changes in opinion in response to conflicting expert messages led to changes in behavior as well as changes in thought.