The Two-Level Analysis

After the arrival of information age and the development of mass communication technology, the political arena has also been changed in how to deal with public opinion. The role of media in the process of crisis management has risen at the same time, since the media has considerable influence on forming public opinion. In some crisis, the media can expand or reproduce the possible danger. In other crisis, the institution related to the crisis can manipulate and control the information so that it needs to control the public opinion. Here rises the importance of proper crisis communication in the process of crisis management.
Globalization also enabled one nation influencing not only the domestic public opinion of one’s own nation, but also the
At the national level, domestic groups pressure the government to adopt policies they favor, while politicians seek power by building coalitions among these constituents. At the international level, governments seek to satisfy domestic pressures while limiting the harmful impact of foreign developments. In the two-level game, each national political leader must simultaneously play both the international and domestic games. In short, while the two-level analysis as introduced by Putnam emphasizes negotiating behavior, it also serves as a metaphor for understanding the impact of domestic influences on the broad spectrum of foreign policy decisions. The negotiator should seek the balance of interest within the nation domestically (level 1), and seeking the balance from outside should be followed (level
After the release of investigation report attributing North Korea as the subject of the sinking, the ROK government tried to present the case to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and seek joint efforts of its neighboring countries to condemn North Korea. However, the Korean government faced strong opposition from its Chinese and Russian counterparts and did not succeed in openly condemning North Korea in the presidential statement issued by the UNSC. Moreover, those two countries openly published their official announcement casting doubts on the investigation process and investigation report. Chinese government, in particular, remains cautious in its official comments without pointing out a certain country for blaming and also doubtful about the authenticity of investigation report, based on skepticism and suspicion raised within the ROK. The Cheonan sinking incident has an implication that foreign policy decision-making process of Chinese government was influenced by the ROK domestic opinion which was conformed partially through the process of the ROK government’s crisis communication. Therefore, this research analyzes the importance of crisis communication in the process of crisis management, and then further researches the sinking of Cheonan