Methodological framework for analyzing peace engineering: Focusing on Kaesong Industrial Complex and North Korean innovators in South Korea

Abstract

This study explores two hypotheses, inspired by peace tourism, to study innovation for peace: “innovation brings peace” and “peace brings innovation.” With respect to the first, the event history analysis of Kaesong Industrial Complex reveals that innovation helps maintain peace by slowing the pace of confrontation. As regards the second, a survey on North Korean innovators in the South unveils the importance of innovator's self-esteem. Causal relationship analysis has shown that the loop structures of innovation in the two cases is involved in sustaining peace. This implies that the problems between the two Koreas can be classified as an “interactive problem.” Our findings suggest that the research on peace engineering can benefit from the existing studies on peace tourism, that problem-oriented innovation systems (PIS) can present a methodological breakthrough, and that the divided Korean peninsula can provide excellent data for case studies. In addition, a methodological framework for analyzing peace engineering was proposed through discussions with peace tourism, PIS, and the theory of socio-technical system. Although this study does not offer the final answer on which is a bigger priority: innovation or peace, our findings will be a good reference for future study of innovation for peace.