ABSTRACT
In the study of security policies, it is essential to review what security means, who defines security policy problems and policy alternatives, and what causes security policy change. This chapter considers various meanings of security, security policy change, political institutions, and institutional capacity. It also spells out contextual determinants and methodological approaches. Various scholars have conceptualized policy-making institutions on legal, moral, and cultural grounds of policy-making. Institutional strengths and weaknesses are intimately related to the notion of the "autonomy" of institutional arrangements. Changes in external structural constraints and in the state's military and economic capabilities in the international distribution of powers all affect institutional capacity. In order to examine causal relations, critical determinants in domestic and international contexts are analyzed and compared to South Korea's security policy behaviors over the Cold War era, the transitional phase, and the post-Cold War era.
