| The conventional approach upon the US-ROK alliance highlights alliance formation and dissolution than alliance restructuring. However, this body of work provides little explanation about why and how the alliance continues to exist beyond this point, while taking on new roles and functions to deal with new security problems and thereby to achieve collective objectives. This dissertation is a study of how the US-ROK alliance become progressively institutionalized over a period of 50 years and of how this institutionalization perpetuated the alliance after the end of the Cold War.;The conventional approach has three major problems. First, it views that alliances merely play contingent roles in facing a dangerous military threat, while relying heavily upon self-help and relative gains under anarchy in international environment. Moreover, it neglects the role of small states in maintaining and developing alliances by emphasizing power and security on the ground of external military threats. And last, it overlooks the role of economic interests, domestic politics, and institutional dynamics in shaping relations among allies by focusing narrowly on concepts such as alliance, security, institutions, and institutionalization.;In light of these criticisms, this study uses the institutional approach to expand the scope of conventional alliance studies for three reasons: (1) it aptly modified definitions in international relations, such as security, security problems, alliance, institution, and so on; (2) it emphasizes the roles of a variety of variables in international politics, including institutions, small states, and international communities; and (3) it shows alliances as institutions adapting to environmental changes in relation to various security problems and collective objectives.;The main goal of this dissertation is to explore how the alliance has developed in the half century since 1953, and how it has adapted to these changes in the form and function. To answer about these questions, this study draws on the institutional approach and then compares the development of significant institutional arrangements within the following three separate periods of the alliance, namely 1953-1964, 1965-1989, and 1990-2004, in response to variations in security problems and collective objectives.;In brief, this study is to examine the institutionalization of the US-ROK alliance during the period of 1953-2004 along the development of its institutional arrangements such as information exchange, dispute settlement mechanism, formal rules and practices, security burden sharing, and integrated military command structure. The main conclusion of this study is that, despite the end of the Cold War, the alliance has been highly institutionalized over time, developing a rich set of shared expectations (commonality), specific rules and practices (specificity), and a clear functional division of labor (functional differentiation). |
