National identity, partisanship, and attitudes toward North Korean defectors in South Korea

Abstract

ABSTRACT Based on the group-centric perspective on immigration, previous studies argue that shared identities help citizens in a host state shape more favourable attitudes toward immigrants. Likewise, the existing findings suggest that, given both co-ethnicity and co-nationality, South Koreans are likely to have more positive attitudes toward North Korean defectors than other types of immigrants. However, in this paper, we present a different perspective to analyse South Koreans’ attitudes toward North Korean defectors by taking the role of partisanship into account. Using an original survey experiment, we found that when the liberal incumbent government emphasises the inclusion of North Korean defectors, conservative partisans’ attitudes become negative. In particular, this partisan bias appears with regard to ethnic national identity, but not to civic national identity. Conversely, under the same condition, liberals’ attitudes do not change positively. Based on the findings, we conclude that South Koreans’ attitudes toward North Korean defectors are related to negative partisanship.