미국 의회의 북한 관련 입법 활동 분석 : 법안 발의의원과 발의 네트워크를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper analyzes North Korea-related bills in the U.S. Congress by focusing on bill sponsors and the cosponsorship networks. We find that, as the military provocation of North Korea progressed rapidly, the number of bills regarding sanctions on North Korea also increased. The bill proposal has been led by the Republican party members, but the bills passed overwhelmingly through bipartisan cooperation once tabled in plenary sessions. The analysis of main sponsors shows that 1) members of the Committee on Foreign Relations, especially members of the Asia-Pacific Sub-committee, play the most important role in legislation of North Korea-related bills; and 2) the individual beliefs and rational motivations to consider their constituents’ preferences are more important than their ideologies themselves. Particularly, Cuban-American legislators have strong negative attitudes toward the North Korean regime, and actively participate in the enactment process of North Korea-related bills, by considering the current North Korean regime an equivalent of the Castro regime. The analysis of the cosponsorship networks shows that 1) the levels of bipartisan cooperation are high at the bill introduction stage; and 2) among legislators who have high centralities in the cosponsorship networks, there are young and influential senators such as Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz. The network analysis result implies that, given legislative professionalism and high incumbent reelection rates in the U.S. Congress, we need to boost exchanges with young legislators such as Marc Veasey whose centralities are high in the cosponsorship networks for North Korea-related bills even if not the members of the Committee on Foreign Relations