Management and Utilization of Leader Gifts in South and North Korea: Implications and an Integrated Post‐Unification Management Plan

ABSTRACT This study examines how South and North Korea manage and use leader gifts, arguing that such gifts do not possess fixed meanings in themselves but function as material symbols whose significance is produced through legal classification, exhibition, cataloging, and official narration. South Korea's Presidential Archives holds approximately 16,000 gifts. Official North Korean publications issued in 2019 reported that more than 116,000 gifts were on display at the International Friendship Exhibition and more than 8900 gifts were on display at the National Gifts Exhibition House. The contemporary South Korean public‐records framework reflects a post‐democratization transformation rather than a historically fixed democratic model, whereas North Korean leader gifts remain embedded in a leader‐centered symbolic regime that converts external recognition into domestic legitimacy. Applying a constructivist perspective, this study analyzes how leader gifts participate in the constitution of state identity and national interest in the two Koreas and proposes an integrated post‐unification strategy that critically recontextualizes North Korean leader gifts as historical and educational resources in a unified Korea.