• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
• /
• v.23 no.1
• /
• pp.58-82
• /
• 2024

Former South Korean President Moon Jae-in implemented a project called the Peace Initiative, which prioritized a "peaceful and prosperous Korean Peninsula" as the core national agenda and involved using a peace-based frame instead of a unification approach to address inter-Korean relations from a different perspective. This initiative was evaluated in this study using a revised version of the pyramid model to assess the input-output-result process underlying the project and determine whether it generated results that differed from those achieved by the previous administration. To these ends, this research compared Moon's key presidential speeches with those of his predecessor, Park Geun-hye, as input, news commentaries and responses from major players as output, and the trend of perceptional and attitudinal changes in public opinion as results. Although Moon failed to accomplish significant policy effects on inter-Korean relations because of geopolitical challenges and the transfer of power to the conservative party, the analysis revealed that the input, output, and partial results of inter-Korean dialogue reflect some progress.