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VOL 17 Nº. 1, TD 1

Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula in a Global

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VOL 17 N1, TD1

Thematic Dossier

The Korean Peninsula in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and Transnational

Perspectives

DOI https://doi.org/10.26619/1647-7251.DT0426

Editorial. The Korean Peninsula in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and Transnational

Perspectives – Bongchul Kim – pp. 2-4

ARTICLES

North Korea: Back to the Future is no Solution – Michael Reiterer – pp. 5-23

Alliance Dilemmas Under the Trump Administration: Abandonment, Entrapment, and

South Korea’s Strategic Choices – Sunghwah Ko – pp. 24-40

From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security Perceptions in the

Korean Digital Public Sphere During the Ukraine War using Kobert – Hayann Lee – pp.

41-57

The UK’s Reset Diplomacy Towards the EU: Implications for Peace on the Korean

Peninsula in the Era of Polycrisis – Euichan Shin – pp. 58-75

Cultural Iberism and its Applicability to the Korean Peninsula – Jieun Kim – pp. 76-91

Scandinavian Literature in Korea: Infrastructural Alignment, Translation, and Cultural

Mediation – Jai-Ung Hong – pp. 92-114

Yes, Reunification by Absorption Would be a Catastrophe for Korea – Jongho Park – pp.

115-129

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EDITORIAL

BONGCHUL KIM

bong625@hufs.ac.kr

Professor at the Division of International Studies and Director at the HUFS-Jean Monnet EU

Centre in Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul (Korea). Prof. Kim is Ph.D in Law (King's

College London) and does teach and research various legal subjects in the fields of International

Economy and Trade, International Relation and Cooperation, Development and Polar Areas.

How to cite this editorial

Kim, Bongchul (2026). Editorial. Janus.net, e-journal of international relations. VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD

1 – Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and

Transnational Perspectives, June 2026, pp. 2-4. DOI https://doi.org/10.26619/1647-

7251.DT0426ED

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e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1

Thematic Dossier

The Korean Peninsula in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and Transnational Perspectives

June 2026, pp. 2-4

Editorial – Bongchul Kim

EDITORIAL

BONGCHUL KIM

This special issue presents seven articles on the Korean Peninsula and its broader

international dimensions. Although the contributions differ in theme and approach, they

are united by a shared concern with how Korean questions are shaped by wider

developments in contemporary world politics, public discourse, and transnational

exchange.

The order of the articles follows a deliberate editorial logic. The issue begins with

immediate questions of security and strategy on the Korean Peninsula, then moves to

changes in public security perceptions, and subsequently broadens toward external

diplomatic, comparative, and cultural perspectives. It closes with a contribution that

addresses the longer-term political future of Korea through the question of reunification.

This progression is intended to give the volume coherence across otherwise diverse

themes.

Michael Reiterer’s “North Korea: Back to the Future is no solution” opens the issue by

reconsidering established approaches to North Korea. Sungwah Ko’s “Alliance Dilemmas

under the Trump Administration: Abandonment, Entrapment, and South Korea’s

Strategic Choices” examines South Korea’s strategic choices under alliance uncertainty.

Hayann Lee’s “From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security

Perceptions in the Korean Digital Public Sphere during the Ukraine War Using KoBERT”

traces changing perceptions of security in Korea’s digital public sphere during the Ukraine

War.

The issue then turns to wider comparative and transnational questions. Euichan Shin’s

“The UK’s Reset Diplomacy towards the EU: Implications for Peace on the Korean

Peninsula in the Era of Polycrisis” considers the relevance of European diplomatic change

for the Korean Peninsula. Jieun Kim’s “Cultural Iberism and its Applicability to the Korean

Peninsula” offers a comparative perspective on historical imagination. Jai-Ung Hong’s

“Scandinavian Literature in Korea: Infrastructural Alignment, Translation, and Cultural

Mediation” explores the role of translation in Korea’s cultural connections beyond the

peninsula.

The final article, Jongho Park’s “Yes, Reunification by Absorption Would Be a Catastrophe

for Korea,” concludes the special issue by raising a fundamental question about the

political and institutional consequences of a future Korean settlement. Finally, the articles

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VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1

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June 2026, pp. 2-4

Editorial – Bongchul Kim

show the diversity of perspectives through which the Korean Peninsula can be examined

today. Written primarily by Korea-based researchers, together with Michael Reiterer,

former Ambassador of the European Union to the Republic of Korea, the collection reflects

both local scholarly engagement and broader international relevance.

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NORTH KOREA: BACK TO THE FUTURE IS NO SOLUTION

MICHAEL REITERER

michael.reiterer@vub.be

Professor for International Security, Diplomacy and Strategy, Brussels School of Governance

(Belgium). Adjunct Professor for International Politics, University of Innsbruck (habilitation 2005,

PhD equivalent), Webster University/Vienna, LUISS/Rome, Danube University/Krems; Guest

professorships at Ritsumeikan University/Kyoto, Kobe and Keio University/Tokyo. Associate

Fellow – Global Fellowship Initiative, Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), Senior Advisor at

Centre for Asia Pacific Strategy (CAPS), Washington DC, Austria Institute for Europa and Security

Policy (AIES) Vienna, and Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW); extensive

list of publications. Ambassador of the European Union to the Republic of Korea (2017-2020),

Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein (2007-2011) rtd. Previously Minister, Deputy

Head of EU-Delegation to Japan (2002-2006); ASEM Counsellor (1998-2002); Minister-

Counsellor, Austrian Mission to the European Union (1997-98); Counsellor, Austrian Mission to

the GATT (1990-92); Austrian Deputy Trade Commissioner to Japan (1985-88) and Western

Africa (1982-85). Panellist at WTO dispute settlement; Co-chair Trade of Joint Group of Trade

and Environment Experts, OECD. Honorary citizen of Seoul (2020); Order of Merit in Silver with

Star, Government of the Republic of Austria (2018).

Abstract

Recalling the 75th anniversary of the Korean War and its implications for global security, the

paper contrasts the peaceful international relations within the EU with the reliance on military

force in East Asia. Based on the comprehensive relationship between South Korea and the EU,

security cooperation has increased also in terms of hardware (arms sales). It could be

intensified to meet the challenges posed for securing supply chains and global trade policy.

The paper addresses the geopolitical dynamics involving North Korea, Russia, and China,

analysing the impact of these new strategic alliances and military cooperation that have

emerged. While denuclearisation should remain the long-term goal, there is a need to rethink

of traditional policies towards North Korea, considering technological advances, lessening of

legal constraints, upending of the goal of unification by the North and the negative examples

of powers having abandoned nuclear arms. ‘Back to the Future’ in applying traditional tools

and instruments is no longer an option – neither for South Korea, nor the European Union.

"Forward to the Past", learning from history but adapting those lessons to new realities rather

than simply repeating old patterns, must be the new direction. To preserve some influence

outside the US-China-Russia triangle and in recognition that there is only one security, the EU

needs to strengthen its engagement in East Asia, based on its comprehensive security

approach. This could include nominating an EU Special Representative for Northeast Asia to

contribute to trust building, reopening of lines of communication and bring diplomacy back to

prevent the flareup of another hot spot.

Keywords

Korean Peninsula, European Union, resilience, strategic cooperation, might-is-right.

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North Korea: Back to the Future is no Solution

Michael Reiterer

Resumo

Recordando o 75.º aniversário da Guerra da Coreia e as suas implicações para a segurança

global, o artigo contrasta as relações internacionais pacíficas no seio da UE com a dependência

da força militar na Ásia Oriental. Com base nas relações abrangentes entre a Coreia do Sul e

a UE, a cooperação em matéria de segurança tem vindo a aumentar também no que diz

respeito ao equipamento militar (venda de armas). Esta cooperação poderia ser intensificada

para responder aos desafios colocados pela segurança das cadeias de abastecimento e pela

política comercial global. O artigo aborda a dinâmica geopolítica envolvendo a Coreia do Norte,

a Rússia e a China, analisando o impacto destas novas alianças estratégicas e da cooperação

militar que surgiram. Embora a desnuclearização deva continuar a ser o objetivo a longo

prazo, é necessário repensar as políticas tradicionais em relação à Coreia do Norte, tendo em

conta os avanços tecnológicos, a diminuição das restrições legais, a reviravolta no objetivo

de unificação por parte do Norte e os exemplos negativos de potências que abandonaram as

armas nucleares. «Regressar ao Futuro» na aplicação de ferramentas e instrumentos

tradicionais já não é uma opção — nem para a Coreia do Sul, nem para a União Europeia.

«Avançar para o Passado», aprendendo com a história mas adaptando essas lições às novas

realidades, em vez de simplesmente repetir velhos padrões, deve ser a nova direção. Para

preservar alguma influência fora do triângulo EUA-China-Rússia e reconhecendo que existe

apenas uma segurança, a UE precisa de reforçar o seu envolvimento na Ásia Oriental, com

base na sua abordagem abrangente em matéria de segurança. Isto poderia incluir a nomeação

de um Representante Especial da UE para a Ásia Nordeste, a fim de contribuir para a

construção de confiança, a reabertura de canais de comunicação e o regresso da diplomacia

para evitar o surto de outro foco de tensão.

Palavras-chave

Península Coreana, União Europeia, resiliência, cooperação estratégica, «o poder faz a razão».

How to cite this article

Reiterer, Michael (2026). North Korea: Back to the Future is no Solution. Janus.net, e-journal of

international relations VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1 – Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula in a Global

Context: Security, Culture, and Transnational Perspectives, June 2026, pp. 5-23. DOI

https://doi.org/10.26619/1647-7251.DT0426.1

Article submitted on December 31, 2025, and accepted for publication on February 6,

2026.

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Transnational Perspectives

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North Korea: Back to the Future is no Solution

Michael Reiterer

NORTH KOREA: BACK TO THE FUTURE IS NO SOLUTION

MICHAEL REITERER

Introduction

The 75th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War serves as a poignant reminder

of the ongoing security tensions in East Asia. The Korean Peninsula remains entangled in

unresolved conflict (Taiwan, South and East China Sea, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan…)

and global security challenges, exacerbated by new strategic alliances in the region.

The coincidence of this anniversary of the Korean War and that of the Schuman

Declaration highlights the contrast between the peaceful system of international relations

within the EU, albeit not in the whole of Europe – Ukraine - and the mistrust and reliance

on military force that persist in East Asia. South Korea is technically still at war with North

Korea, as is Japan with Russia because of the Kurile Islands (Northern Territories).

For South Korea, this conflict at its doorstep, requires full attention. This needs a foreign

policy building international cooperation to control and solve this internationalised

conflict. At the same time, the country must shoulder international responsibility as a

major economy and as a technology provider.

The EU's engagement in East Asia must evolve to address these complexities through

innovative diplomacy, comprehensive security approaches, and updated policy

strategies.

The main conclusion this paper will develop is that it is necessary for the EU to adapt its

critical engagement strategy towards North Korea and embrace innovative diplomacy to

maintain or build some influence in Northeast Asia. By fostering deeper partnerships with

South Korea and Japan and addressing North Korea’s nuclear threat through deterrence

and dialogue, the EU can contribute to regional stability and uphold the principles of a

rules-based international order.

Considerable Change of the Geopolitical Context

As a sort of Cold War and tensions have persisted in Asia since the end of the Great

Pacific War, recognition and standing as a global political player is still measured

according to military and political parameters. Economics is crucial but not enough to be

counted in as one of the big players – geo-economics is just one part of geo-politics, the

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Transnational Perspectives

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North Korea: Back to the Future is no Solution

Michael Reiterer

arms race has persisted, not least because of China’s heavy investment in building a blue

water navy.

COVID 19 brought some change: the importance of supply and production chains came

to the fore. The weaponisation of trade and in particular the most beautiful word in the

vocabulary of President Trump, “tariffs”, moved trade policy back not only into the

limelight but also the stone age. This unravelling of past achievements, in particular the

WTO which had been set up to de-politicise trade policy and provide stability and

predictability, leads to unseen disturbances and welfare losses for all. Populists are not

aware, that in the long run, there is no protection in protectionism.

Like the Korean War which internationalised with the intervention of UN-forces under US

leadership, the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine demonstrates to everybody that

there is only one security: South Korea joined the group of countries condemning the

flagrant breach of the Charta of the United Nations by Russia and applies sanctions. It

also started to backfill arms for Ukraine through sales of weapons to Poland and the US.

South Korea also started to backfill arms for Ukraine through sales of weapons to Poland

and the US. Thus, on the Ukrainian battlefields South Korean weapons meet North Korean

soldiers and arms.

A continuation of past policies, more of the same, will neither preserve the status quo,

which is not desirable anyhow, nor bring the problem closer to a solution. Thus, while

denuclearisation remains the global long-term goal, it is unlikely that North Korea will

give up its nuclear arsenal any time soon as it guarantees regime survival. The recent

attack of Iran by Israel, supported by the US by attacks on Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan

with “bunker buster" bombs (GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator - MOP) will harden

this conviction: Ghaddafi in Libya, Hussein in Iraq and Ukraine renounced nuclear

weapons and paid a heavy price. In short, “Back to the Future” would mean more tension

and turmoil ahead.

And the winner is: North Korea

North Korea has improved its position in gaining more options: it has added Russia as a

balancer to the rocky relationship with its long-time-only supporter, China. The 2024

Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, signed by Putin and Kim Jong-un Un

provides for "military and other assistance" in case of an armed attack. This amounts to

an alliance and could turn what was often regarded as technicality or left-over from the

Korean War – there is only an armistice between the two Koreas and no peace treaty -

into a serious issue: According to Russian propaganda, Russia is under attack by NATO

and must defend itself. Therefore, North Korea is providing assistance in sending troops

and not only weapons. According to the same logic, North Korea could claim Russian

support against South Korea with which it is technically still at war!

North Korean soldiers on European soil are a serious escalation and could involve an

Asian state in a conflict with NATO, should Putin decide in the future to attack a NATO

member. This alliance will embolden North Korea’s Kim Jong-un as he finally gets out of

the unilateral dependence on China and now has Russia as a hedging partner vis-à-vis

China. At the same time and different from 2018, Kim Jong-un will also be less keen to

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Michael Reiterer

restart his bromance with Donald Trump; he also refuses the persistent overtures of

President Lee Jae-myung to recalibrate the relationship after the hawkish President Yoon

and open lines of bilateral communication.

While Russia attempted extending this trilateral China-Russia-North Korea to Iran,

hostilities between Israel and Iran as well US attacks on Iran have devalued this

extension. The other supporters of Russia, who rejected in 2022 condemning the

aggression against Ukraine in the United Nations, namely Belarus, Eritrea and Syria, are

no material support.

Most importantly in the UN context, the veto of Russia to reconduct the UN Panel of

Experts e.g., the committee monitoring sanctions, takes off some pressure from the

North, as the replacement, the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT)

carries less authority. The non-prolongation of the UN Panel, however, has NOT ended

the sanctions which remain in place and therefore need to be implemented. The first

report of the MSMT published on 29 May 2025, underscores this fact. It also calls for

active diplomacy to restore the UN Panel – which grants more legitimacy – and invites

the DPRK to engage diplomatically. The reporting focuses on the North Korea – Russia

cooperation.

Russia and North Korea are under heavy sanctions. In the case of North Korea, they

have not realised the main goal, to stop the development of nuclear weapons and inter-

ballistic missile systems. As a collateral damage, the North Korean people suffer from

malnutrition, a miserable standard of living while the family dictatorship shields itself and

its cronies from the effects of sanctions.

North Korea excels in making use of emerging technologies: cybercrime helps to fill the

otherwise empty state pockets, facilitated using crypto currencies/bitcoins

which are

difficult to track. Chinese knowhow allows to maintain the Korean version of the Great

Cyber Wall; Russian oil lubricates some industry and food deliveries prevent a large-scale

famine. While the argument, without sanctions the situation would be worse holds some

truth, a rethink of policies is necessary.

Geopolitically, all eyes are on Ukraine, Gaza, Taiwan, India-Pakistan, the South China

Sea and the erratic policies of the Trump II administration. Trump’s admiration for strong

leaders, irrespective of their moral standards, opens even the perspective to tie in the

old love affair and rekindle the Kim-Trump bromance, potentially with Putin as the Third

Man. Old love does not rust, but the bromance Trump-Putin is deteriorating as the latter

clearly plays the former. Recall the melt down between Donald Trump and Elon Musk!

President Trump will soon realise that the price for engaging with Kim Jun-un has gone

up compared to seven years ago. Standing between Xi and Putin gives Kim re-assurance,

Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, the

United Kingdom, United States of America

US Department of State (2025). Joint Statement of the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT) on

the First Report Covering DPRK-Russia Military Cooperation. 29 May 2025; at https://www.state.gov/joint-

statement-of-the-multilateral-sanctions-monitoring-team-msmt-on-the-first-report-covering-dprk-russia-

military-cooperation/

Dan Goodin (2025). How North Korea pulled off a $1.5 billion crypto heist—the biggest in history. Ars technica,

25 February 2025; at https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/02/how-north-korea-pulled-off-a-1-5-billion-

crypto-heist-the-biggest-in-history/

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North Korea: Back to the Future is no Solution

Michael Reiterer

the urge to talk with and be recognised by the US has diminished. Russian pays for

deliveries either in cash or technological support for the nuclear and missiles programs;

evidently cooperation is not tied to international law and any moral standards. North

Korea did not respond positively to being left off the US travel ban list if the omission

was meant to encourage future engagement

The 2025 National Security Strategy was strong in criticising Europe but short of even

mentioning North Korea. The role assigned to Seoul is primarily to contribute to reducing

US trade deficit and burden sharing in military and infrastructure investments. The 2026

US National Defence Strategy assigns South Korea the task to keep North Korea at bay

and to invest correspondingly under the US ‘extended deterrence’.

The European Union's robust partnership with the Republic of Korea is founded upon a

shared acknowledgement of the strategic significance of the Democratic People's Republic

of Korea, as well as sustained support for South Korean policies through a unique array

of agreements and a strategic partnership. The European Union has persistently

encouraged successive Korean administrations to advance diplomatic engagement,

constructive dialogue, the peaceful resolution of disputes, non-proliferation initiatives,

and the pursuit of denuclearization.

As for the South Korean governments’ policy towards the North, whether progressive or

conservative, Sheena Greitens concludes:

“Korean progressives emphasize economic and social rights in their stance

toward the North and focus on improving the welfare of North Koreans

through intergovernmental rapprochement with Pyongyang — a process that

has often led them to constrain the role of civil society organizations and

activists to keep political dialogue going. Conservatives treat consideration of

civil and political rights as a precondition for discussions of unification. They

are sceptical of the compromises necessary to achieve rapprochement with

Pyongyang, and elevate the role of North Korean defectors, including those

who openly call for political change to the Kim regime, rather than prioritizing

intergovernmental contact”

President Lee’s challenges

The new government of President Lee Jae-myung is expected to be more inclined to

engage with the North than the Yoon Suk Yeol administration which advocated unification

on South Korean terms as laid out in his last liberation day speech on 15 August 2024

Thus, a rethink of the traditional fixtures of South Korean policy, preventing war,

achieving denuclearization, and laying the foundation for unification will be necessary.

Yonhap (2025). N. Korea says U.S. entry ban not a matter of interest over its omission from list. 10 June

2025; at https://m-en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20250610002100315?section=nk/nk

Sheena Chestnut Greitens (2025). How South Korea’s Next Leader Should Handle Kim Jong-un. The Journal

of Democracy, May 2025; at https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/online-exclusive/how-south-koreas-next-

leader-should-handle-kim-jong-un/

Yonhap (2024). Full text of Yoon's Liberation Day speech. 15 August 2024; at

https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20240815002500315

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North Korea: Back to the Future is no Solution

Michael Reiterer

Kim Jong-un has abandoned the long-standing pet project of unification in a rather radical

change of policy. He deviated from the policy lines of his father, Kim Jong-il, and -even

more striking, his venerated grandfather, Kim Il-sung.

While it needs two to tango, to maintain the prospect for unification, the South will have

to shoulder the brunt of the project to maintain the prospect of unification. While still

official policy, there is a clear generational split in the South Korean society. The younger

generation has no emotional attachment any longer and is therefore not willing to bear

the heavy costs of what they perceive to be ‘another’ people. This is certainly an area

where provincial governments, like Gyeonggi Province, which are prone to foster the

people-to-people dimension can play an important supportive role.

Limited options for the incumbent president

President Lee Jae-myung intends to follow a “pragmatic diplomacy grounded in national

interests", maintaining South Korea's alliance with the U.S. as the "foundation" of his

envisioned foreign policy”. This realpolitik will include “future-oriented relations with

Japan”

In his inaugural address which marked the transition from campaigner to

president and therefore was more sensible than campaign speeches, he hinted at a

balanced policy without giving any specifics: “With a defence budget twice that of North

Korea, the world’s fifth-ranked military, and the Korea-U.S. alliance, we will deter nuclear

threats and military provocations while keeping open channels of dialogue to establish

peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

This is an interesting nuance, deterrence vis-à-vis North Korea, not China, unlike the US.

President Lee moved quickly to improve atmospherics in reducing cross border irritations

like blaring loudspeakers and exchange of balloons. While the latter make sense

politically, this might infringe on the right of free speech and demonstration according to

the Constitutional Court. Based on experience, trust and confidence building measures

are welcome to reduce tensions, However, a policy based on reciprocity and snap-back

measures if commitments are not honoured, will be more effective than one-sided open

offers which can be interpreted as weakness.

President Lee put Japan into the trilateral context, “We will reinforce the Korea-U.S.

alliance, strengthen trilateral cooperation with the U.S. and Japan and approach relations

with neighboring countries through the lens of practicality and national interest.”

China

was not mentioned specifically but is covered by “neighboring” countries – a classic

hedging approach to bridge the gap between the largest trading partner, China, and the

main security provider, the US, with which South Korea is locked into an alliance. The

first personal encounter in the margins of the G7 of both leaders built a base. In pursuing

pragmatically wants to pursue a ‘two track’ approach, e.g., separating historical disputes

from forward looking cooperation

, President Lee made a historic stop-over in Tokyo on

Yonhap (2025). Lee's 'pragmatic diplomacy' vision put to test in U.S. alliance, regional power ties .4 June

2025; at https://m-en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20250602009900315?section=national/diplomacy

The Korea Times (2025). Lee Jae-myung's inaugural speech. 4 June 2025; at

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/politics/20250604/full-text-lee-jae-myungs-inaugural-speech

Yonhap (2025). So close, yet so far: S. Korea-Japan ties at pivotal moment 60 yrs after normalization. 15

June 2025; at https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20250613006900315

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Michael Reiterer

his way to the first summit with President Trump in Washington. Prime Minister Takaishi

responded by inviting President Lee to visit her hometown, Nara, a city known for its

historic connections to Korea. Together, the leaders pioneered an innovative diplomatic

approach, "drum diplomacy," where they played drums along with K-Pop music rhythms.

Should the EU play the China card?

Because of the deteriorating situation between the US and China, China is starting a timid

charm offensive, reaching out to the EU, Japan and South Korea while continuing to grant

India a favourable treatment. President Xi needs to rekindle growth, needs alternative

market access opportunities in the battle with President Trump; strategically Xi continues

pursuing a goal he shares with Putin, to split the West, or whatever is left from this

notion.

Utilising China's strong position as a market, raw material and technology provider as

leverage is not the most effective strategy for the European Union. Nevertheless, given

that the United States under President Trump has shifted from a stabilising influence to

a potentially destabilising one by questioning established alliances, shared interests, and

values, it is essential to acknowledge the geo-economic and political significance of China

and incorporate this consideration into future policy development.

At the G7 President von der Leyen delivered a rather hawkish speech on the Global

economic outlook, either as a warning when setting the scene for the July summit in

Beijing or to renounce playing the China card: ”China has largely shown that it

unwillingness to live within the constraints of the rules based international system. While

other opened their market China focused undercutting intellectual property protections,

massive subsidies with the aim to dominate global manufacturing and supply chains. This

is not market competition – it is distortion with intent. And it undermines our

manufacturing sectors.”

She also identified China’s insistence on its status as a

developing country in the WTO as the “biggest collective problem”. In September 2025

responded to this criticism. While it did not renounce its status, China announced it would

no longer invoke special and differential treatment (S&DT) as a developing country in

future WTO negotiations.

Given the economic interdependence with China, the EU has already ruled out decoupling

from or isolating China. Without being blue-eyed the EU follows a policy of derisking

which does not exclude sectoral cooperation, politically and economically. China has lifted

bans on some members of the European Parliament which at the time caused the collapse

of the Comprehensive Investment Agreement (CIA). While this Agreement is not re-

instated immediately, there is clearly a Chinese interest for cooperation, not least to

stabilise its own economy. President Xi will go to great lengths to prevent economic issues

at home from causing discontent or political unrest. The negative repercussions of the

trade and tariff war with the US are an incentive for China to work more closely with the

EU. Therefore, trade negotiations are ongoing, China has also hinted to be forthcoming

Ursula von der Leyen (2025). Statement Session I of G7, Global economic outlook; 16 June 2025; at

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_25_1521

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on a deal to secure the supply of essential raw materials like rare earth

; measures to

improve market access for goods, services and investment to provide the famous level

playing field and reduce the ballooning trade deficit need to follow. However, the

profound differences concerning Chinese support for Russia including North Korean

troops in Ukraine pose serious problems for cooperation which were not addressed at the

EU-China Summit on July 24-25, 2025.

Among the key outcomes of this short summit in Brussels without President Xi was the

extension of climate collaboration with China, encompassing initiatives such as clean

energy development, methane emission reduction, and carbon market mechanisms. The

relaxation of rare earth export restrictions represented a significant positive development

for European businesses and is considered a strategic geopolitical decision by China,

distinguishing its approach to the EU from that to the United States.

On other issues, neither side is wearing rose-tinted glasses. Commission President von

der Leyen emphasized that bilateral ties were at an “inflection point” and called on both

sides to “come forward with real solutions.” Meanwhile, according to the official Chinese

readout, President Xi Jinping (習近平) urged the EU to avoid “restrictive economic and

trade measures” and to keep its markets open. He also called for joint support of

multilateralism and opposition to “unilateralism”, a thinly veiled reference to the United

States. Notably, the Chinese brief made no mention of the war in Ukraine, a key issue

raised by the EU side. Thus, the situation remains volatile as the EU must also to pursue

its interests through reciprocity: member states voted 2 June 2025 to restrict access to

the vast procurement markets for Chinese medical device manufacturers in response to

Beijing’s refusal to open its own tenders to EU firms.

Dealing with North Korea

Restraining North Korea could well be a common interest of the EU and China.

Thus, the EU inviting China to restrain North Korea in its support for Russia, especially

concerning further nuclearization with Russian support and know-how. Allegedly, North

Korea is pursuing the project of a nuclear submarine - a rather difficult task, remember

the AUKUS discussion and fall-out. Non-proliferation has been a common denominator

between the EU-China and the US; President Trump, however, is using loose language

in referring to North Korea as a ‘nuclear state’, opening the door to a path to the nuclear

club like in the case of India and Pakistan. Adding another two, South Korea and Japan,

to the already existing three nuclear powers in Northeast Asia - China, Russia and North

Korea - would hardly be a contribution to stability with South Asia already suffering from

the tensions between nuclear India and Pakistan.

In general, the EU pursues a policy of critical engagement towards the DPRK. “Its goals

are to support a lasting diminution of tensions on the Korean peninsula and in the region,

to uphold the international non-proliferation regime and to improve the situation of

New York Times (2025). China Hints at Rare Earths Progress With E.U. Before Talks With U.S. 6 June 2025;

at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/business/china-rare-earth-licensing.html

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human rights in the DPRK.”

The EEAS website has been updated last time 18 January

2022 – in these rapidly changing times this negligence is a message.

This EU policy started in 1995 with varying phases of engagement or critique. At the end

of the 1990s during a more engaging phase, the EU participated in KEDO, the Korea

Energy Development Organisation. The project failed in the end; the EU had only played

a secondary role – invited to pay but not to act politically.

The last years have been characterised by pressure and sanctions in implementing the

UN sanctions to which the EU added autonomous sanctions. This caused in 2015 the

termination of the political and human rights dialogue between the EU and North Korea

while some humanitarian aid through NGOs was continued.

Although some member states have embassies in Pyongyang and are striving to get back

post-COVID to pre-COVID level, the EU could not prevent the diplomatic failure, that for

a long time the Chinese had the only solid line of communication with the Kim regime.

The brief interlude Trump – Kim was only a bracket. The forceful engagement of Russia,

however, is a game changer.

As President Putin is not interested in terminating hostilities anytime soon and strives to

keep up tensions at the border with NATO (Baltic states, Poland), the above mentioned

2024 Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between Russia and North Korea

has become more than a ‘one-nightstand’ and produces all the risks of an alliance which

the EU has to factor in when finally re-examining its policy.

The future role for the EU

Based on a successful free trade agreement, South Korea is the EU's eighth-largest trade

partner in goods, while the EU is Korea's third-largest trade partner, a digital trade

agreement was added giving life to the Digital and Connectivity partnerships. European

companies are the largest source of investment. The EU’s trade deficit is compensated

by a structural surplus in services (2023).

In the various Asia, Asia Pacific or Indo Pacific strategies, as well as the 2016 Global

Strategy and the 2022 Global Compass, the EU has developed the concept of

comprehensive security in substance and geography. As there is only one security,

neglecting the part of the world, which is most dynamic, technologically at the edge, with

an overall growing population and a remarkable number of hotspots, is no political option.

Having the capacity to respond to multiple crises at the same time, even with war in

Europe (Ukraine), is essential for a major power. While the EU has learned that economic

and soft power need also to translate not only into smart but also into hard power,

responding to these challenges is particularly difficult when the decade-long reliable ally

and partner, turns unreliable calling out the EU as an institution set-up to screw the US.

EEAS. EU and DPRK; at https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/dprk-and-eu_en (accessed 5 February 2026).

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This total reversal of politics necessitates a fundamental rethink of the EU’s foreign and

defence policies and actually acting upon the ‘Zeitenwende’ the then German chancellor

Olaf Scholz rightfully proclaimed.

Politicians and the general publics in Europe must recognise urgently that there is no

more space for nostalgia for good old times: Striving for more resilience, more

engagement, shouldering more responsibility politically and exercising leadership are

challenges the EU shares with its Northeast Asian partners, South Korea and Japan

This should and could lead to a closer trilateral (EU, ROK, Japan) policy coordination for

mutual reassurance and solidification vis-à-vis North Korea, China, Russia and the United

States – the latter a new, unusual and disquieting addition to challenges to meet. This

situation is at the same time a strong call on South Korea and Japan to overcome the

legacies of the past in a sustainable manner. A steady policy outliving changes of

governments is necessary to cooperate in the overriding interest, to stabilise the situation

thereby strengthening the bargaining power of the three. Cooperation between South

Korea and Japan is an essential element in the security equation of Northeast Asia. This

cooperation could become even stronger if the principles established at the Camp David

trilateral summit convened by President Biden in 2024 continue to endure.

As HRVP Kallas pointed out at the2025 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore:

“North Korea directly contributes to the illegal aggression with soldiers, arms

and ammunition. And China says it’s neutral, but its dual-use exports are

fuelling Russia’s war. When China and Russia speak of leading together

changes not seen in a hundred years and of revisions to the global security

order, we should all be extremely worried.” She also recalled: “Back in 2022,

former Japanese Prime Minister Kishida warned from this stage that Ukraine

today may be East Asia tomorrow. We are over three years into this war

now”

Acknowledging geopolitical difficulties, the EU needs to revise its approach by rethinking

its traditional and favoured role as a peace project, ensuring this is supported by robust

defence measures. The EU plans to allocate up to €800 billion for joint defence

investments; without this, it cannot achieve its aim of being a credible global security

partner.

The EU has concluded security and defence partnerships with Japan and the Republic

of Korea. In addition, the Strategic Compass and the Indo-Pacific Strategy foresee a

Michael Reiterer (2020). The European Union and Security Cooperation: Bringing Northeast Asia into Focus.

Global Asia, The East Asia Institute (Seoul, 10 November 2020); at

https://www.globalnk.org/commentary/view?cd=COM000044

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Korea (2024). Joint Statement of Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the United

States. 18 November 2024; at https://overseas.mofa.go.kr/eng/brd/m_5674/view.do?seq=321087

EEAS (2025). Speech by High Representative/Vice-President Kaja Kallas at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue; at

https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/speech-high-representativevice-president-kaja-kallas-iiss-shangri-la-

dialogue_en

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deepening of security relations with India and Australia, New Zealand. At the beginning

of 2026, the partnership with Vietnam was elevated to the “comprehensive” level.

More attention needs also to be paid to the Pacific Island states because of their strategic

importance and not only because of their essential threats of rising sea levels because of

climate change.

The same applies to the regional trade agreements, in particular the CPTPP which

South Korea is set to join. Regional trade governance are important stepping stones

for revitalising the rules-based trading system and the WTO, an idea this author had

already voiced in 2022, and finally taken up by President von der Leyen in her 2025 State

of the Union address in response to President Trump’s erratic trade policy. In November

2025 at a meeting in Australia closer cooperation between the EU and CPTPP participants

was agreed. Joining the Partnership like the United Kingdom appears to be too

cumbersome and time consuming when quicker action is required. A quarter of a century

negotiations of the MERCOSUR free trade agreement, finally signed but sent to the

European Court of Justice by the European Parliament, is a serious weakening of the EU

in the sole area where it is strong On the other hand, the signing of the “mother of all

deals”, a free trade agreement with India

as well as a landmark EU-India Security and

Defence Partnership is a strong contribution to governance and shared resilience. These

pacts strengthen the autonomy of both partners as well as the rules-based approach;

swift implementation is of course necessary to increase leverage. President Trump

reducing reciprocal tariffs from imports from India

right after India’s agreement with

the EU is a strong indication of the effectiveness of this policy.

Despite Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, North Africa, the Balkans and many more challenges,

Europe must cultivate a long-term, strategic commitment to Northeast Asia and therefore

aim at contributing to find solutions to the specific regional hotspots, North Korea,

Taiwan, South and East China Sea, India-Pakistan to name a few.

North Korea

Experience with NAPCI, the Northeast Asian Peace Cooperation Initiative under the

presidency of Park Geun-hye

, and the Ulaanbaatar Dialogue shows that it needs more

than functional cooperation to solve high stakes political and security problems,

although functional cooperation can become an important stepping stone. The so-called

Zermatt Dialogue managed by the Swiss think tank Geneva Centre for Security Policy

(GSCP) provides a platform to meet but lacks the element of power of persuasion

necessary r for talks to produce results.

Joint statement on upgrading relations between the European Union and Viet Nam to a Comprehensive

Strategic Partnership, 29 January 2026; at

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/de/statement_26_255

European Commission (2026) EU and India conclude negotiations for largest trade deal in their history. 28

January 2026; at https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ac_26_253

BBC (2026) US and India reach trade deal, Trump says after Modi call. 2 February 2026; at

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yve1x9zv0o

Michael Reiterer (2015). The NAPCI in the Volatile Security Environment of North-East Asia: Which Role for

the European Union? European Foreign Affairs Review 20, no.4, 2015; pp. 573-590.

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North Korea’s alliance with Russia renders every effort more difficult – the ‘my enemy’s

friend is my enemy ‘logic cements a relationship instead of weakening it. The EU can

either encourage member states to provide track 2 or 1.5 platforms or do it itself with a

broader basis.

Nominating a special representative for Northeast Asia who has the time and

infrastructure to work in and with the various stakeholders in the region would manifest

the EU’s engagement in this important region, add an element of stability and

sustainability, and translate the EU’s narrative into action. In times of budgetary

constraints drawing on defence spending could be a solution, as this would only be a tiny

fraction of the envisaged € 800 bn. As a policy axiom, prevention is always cheaper than

warfare and reconstruction.

Supporting South Korea’s policy towards North Korea has been a trademark of the

EU’s policy. The political consultations upgraded to the ministerial level provide the

platform for policy coordination. Given the geopolitical situation, the EU should continue

stressing the need to cooperate with Japan, both countries are concerned and threatened

by a hostile North Korea supported by aggressive Russia. The EU seeking better relations

and an understanding to prevent proliferation of nuclear devices and weapons of mass

destruction with China would impact on North Korea. Achieving stability and nuclear

restraint on the Korean Peninsula strikes a chord in the region, as expressed by the 27

May 2024 Joint Declaration of the 9th Republic of Korea-Japan-China Trilateral Summit

Due to Russia’s support and its recent inroads in missiles and weapons technology, albeit

with setbacks as the disastrous launch of a new 5,000-ton destroyer showed, North Korea

has become an international and no longer only regional problem. While denuclearisation

remains the global goal, it is unlikely that North Korea will give up its nuclear arsenal

which guarantees regime survival.

The recent attack of Iran by Israel, supported by the US by attacks on Fordo, Natanz and

Isfahan with bunker buster" bombs (GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator - MOP) will

harden this conviction: Ghaddafi in Libya, Hussein in Iraq and Ukraine renounced nuclear

weapons and paid a heavy price.

Consequently, striving for ‘complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization’

is no longer a realistic short-term goal while remaining an idealistic long-term one. The

discussion whether South Korea can continue relying on the US nuclear shield and US

boots on the ground under Trump, or whether it should go nuclear itself with

consequences for proliferation, has already arrived in South Korea. Switching to arms

reduction talks, coping with the nuclear threat in the region through deterrence will need

an international response.

“Prime Minister Kishida expressed serious concern over North Korea’s nuclear and missile activities and

development of military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, and reconfirmed that the

denuclearization of North Korea and the stability of the Korean Peninsula is the common interest of the three

countries. Prime Minister Kishida stated that the three countries should urge North Korea to completely abandon

its nuclear and ballistic missile programs in accordance with relevant United Nations Security Council

resolutions. Prime Minister Kishida also asked for continued support of the leaders of the ROK and China for

the immediate resolution of the abductions issue and gained their understanding.” Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

Japan (2024). The Ninth Japan-China-ROK Trilateral Summit. 27 May 2024; at

https://www.mofa.go.jp/a_o/rp/pageite_000001_00376.html

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To render the EU policy with North Korea more dynamic, all member states have to be

on board, including France which does not maintain regular diplomatic relations but

operated only a cooperation office for humanitarian and cultural matters from 2011 until

its COVID induced closure in 2020. As a permanent member of the UNSC France bears

special responsibility within the UN as well as for EU foreign policy making.

Multilateral engagement

Invitations to the G7 and NATO summits are a recognition of South Korea’s strategic

position in the region and a contribution to stabilise the country after the internal turmoil

in pulling it back into the community of responsible international actors. This will help

President Lee to “expand Korea’s diplomatic reach, raise [Korea’s] international stature

and enlarge our economic territory.”

However, in the context of NATO as a AP4 country

, it will not only be honour and

participation but also shouldering of additional costs: the 5% GDP target for defence

spending will also be applied to Asian partners and allies according to US sources

. This

would translate into a doubling of South Korea’s already considerable defence spending

and support for stationing of US troops. (In 2025 South Korea's defence budget stands

at around 61.2 trillion won (US$44.6 billion), about 2.32 % of its GDP.

) Turning down

the invitation to the 2025 summit because of burning domestic issues allows various

interpretations: stepping back from NATO as a transatlantic military alliance as criticised

previously by the opposition leader Lee; renouncing to avoid further irritating China and

Russia; or pragmatically, in recognition that the much wanted meeting with President

Trump was difficult to secure (Trump had left the G7 before the arranged meeting could

take place.)

Hosting the 2025 APEC summit in South Korea offered the occasion for the long-sought

for summit with President Xi. Preventing a further emboldening of North Korea because

of its alliance with Putin’s Russia is a common goal where joining hands of China, South

Korea, Japan and the EU could lead to common diplomatic efforts.

This EU-South Korea cooperation should also include ASEAN. Like the EU, South Korea

has traditionally supported ASEAN. Economic security upgraded the geoeconomic

importance of the ASEAN market for diversification, supply and production chains. In

terms of security policy countries like the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia are part of

the island chain parameters.

South Korea reaching out to partners who share the interest to counter the insecurity

created by the transactional policies of President Trump, like the EU, Canada, Australia,

New Zealand, ASEAN and - at least partly India would enlarge the room of manoeuvre

and increase autonomy. Thereby strengthening trade governance could play a pivotal

The Korea Times (2025).

Michael Reiterer (2024). NATO and the Republic of Korea: The AP4 in the Indo-Pacific”. 38 North, 9 April

2024; at https://bit.ly/43UAhyr

Yonhap (2025). S. Korea says share of its defense spending against GDP 'very high' compared with key U.S.

allies. 20 June 2025; at https://m-en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20250620003552315?section=search

Yonhap (2025). Trump repeats NATO members should spend 5 pct of GDP on defense. 20 June 2025; at

https://m-en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20250621000351315?section=national/diplomacy

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role: The necessity to provide economic security, secure and stable supply and production

lines as well as sea lanes for transport, or more generally the need to get back to a stable

rules-based international order, provide a sound interest-based foundation for enhancing

cooperation for middle powers. In the aftermath of COVID-19, China’s

instrumentalization of rare earth exports and Trump’s transactional tariff and economic

policies made it abundantly clear that a more organised response was needed.

As pointed out already in 2022, the regional trade agreements, RCEP and CPTPP merit

more attention by the EU

. In view of President Trump’s unruly trade policy, President

von der Leyen has taken up this issue, recognising that closer cooperation with the

interested countries in this economically and technically prone region could serve as a

stepping stone to revitalise rules based free trade and the WTO

. In the more immediate

future, demonstrating that rules-based policies produce better results in the interests of

participating countries is the necessary enabler giving agency to such an approach.

Conclusions

Considering North Korea's significant advancements in nuclear and missile capabilities,

Kim Jong-un's increasingly aggressive stance which now includes the possible first use

of nuclear weapons under certain circumstances (read: threat to the survival of the

regime), the ending of its longstanding special relationship with South Korea and the

rejection of unification with what it now sees as an enemy, as well as the backing of two

permanent UN Security Council members, China and Russia, and an alliance like

strengthened strategic partnership with Russia, and finally a US president who pursues

transactional policies without values, it is evident that simply relying on traditional

diplomatic approaches is no longer feasible for South Korea or the European Union. Both

must recognise that past strategies, ‘Back to the Future’, will not suffice in this

dramatically altered geopolitical landscape.

"Forward to the Past", learning from history but adapting those lessons to new realities

rather than simply repeating old patterns, must be the new policy direction. This will

need more than just a pragmatic diplomacy or the continuation or only slight update of

critical engagement

The new geopolitical situation e.g., power politics in a multipolar world where

international law and guardrails are weakened, the direct involvement of North Korea in

Ukraine and the constraints to placate President Trump in pursuing his China policy and

yet unclear North Korea policy, will constrain the room of manoeuvre outside the US-

China-Russia triangle, including for the incumbent South Korean President, considerably.

The worst-case scenario would be Korea-passing after a successful deal Trump-Putin on

Michael Reiterer (2022). Regional Trade Agreements in the Indo-Pacific: Does the EU Risk Losing Sight of

Their Importance? CSDS Policy Brief 01/2022; at https://csds.vub.be/publication/regional-trade-agreements-

in-the-indo-pacific-does-the-eu-risk-losing-sight-of-their-importance/

Reuters (2025). EU's Pacific alliance would not replace WTO, EU officials say. 27 June 2025; at

https://www.reuters.com/en/eu-alliance-with-pacific-rim-could-lead-wto-redesign-von-der-leyen-says-2025-

06-27/

Michael Reiterer (2026) The Puzzle of South Korea’s Foreign Policy: Can You Have It All? Global Policy 2026

https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.70131 (forthcoming)

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Ukraine: Putin could take on the role as facilitator for a renewal of the Trump-Kim Jong-

un contacts, a role previously played by President Moon Jae-in during the first bromance.

As for the EU to preserve some influence, it must strengthen its engagement with

East Asia, the Korean Peninsula and North Korea to pursue its security interests in

updating and adapting the principles laid out in the Strategic Compass and its Indo-Pacific

Strategy

to the new situation created by Trump II as well as the technological progress

reached by North Korea. Security is interconnected; only deeper involvement will lend

the EU credibility as a political and security actor in the region and avoid EU-passing in

policy making. As a sizable economic power with a track record of promoting rules-based

policies, the EU has credibility to act as the defender and promotor of a rules-based

order, rule of law to prevent further progress by ‘might is right’.

Revitalising the rules-based trading order through cooperation with partners in the

region, such as those participating or considering doing (South Korea) in the

Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), could

be at the same time a stepping stone for redesigning the WTO. To recall, TPP was the

economic pillar of President Obama’s pivot to Asia which Trump I abandoned.

The current policy of ‘critical engagement’ needs a rethink, a stronger commitment to

engagement, diplomacy to solve the nuclear crisis and prevent further proliferation. The

EU has gained considerable experience in this field when leading the negotiations with

Iran which resulted in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for the exclusively

peaceful use of nuclear energy. An EU Special Representative (EUSR) for Northeast

Asia could help implementing an innovative approach visibly and signal unity and

presence, important features for being effective. While ‘flying the flag’ is always

important in diplomacy, this applies in particular to Asia where personal contacts are

crucial.

North Korea’s nuclear threat needs to be countered by firm diplomacy and deterrence

seeking dialogue on arms reduction with the ultimate goal of denuclearisation and

avoiding proliferation.

Applying the Korean Peninsula recipe to Ukraine e.g., a frozen conflict with an

armistice but no peace agreement, could be a short term means to stop fighting but

would at the same time add another unstable, unresolved situation but not a sustainable

solution although provisional agreements can develop quite some staying power.

In extending its Connectivity Strategy

the EU could foster an arrangement between

South and North Korea, for instance reconnecting the railway systems, would connect

the Korean Peninsula to Europe via the Eurasian landmass. This could have a double

function: adding to the security of communication lines of the South while being part of

an incentive bargaining package, in case talks with North Korea restart in earnest.

Michael Reiterer (2023), The European Union in Asia and the Indo-Pacific: international cooperation in the

era of great transformation and mounting security challenges. Lausanne, Jean Monnet Foundation for Europe,

Debates and Documents Collection, issue 31, December 2023; at https://jean-monnet.ch/wp-

content/uploads/2023/12/23-12-eu-asia-indopacific-m-reiterer-cdd-31.pdf (open access).

See Shiong Kim, Michael Reiterer (eds). Connecting Europe and Asia: Security, Economy and Mobility. Huine

HUFS University Press, Seoul, 2023.

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To end this analysis on a positive note: Autocratic powers tried to bend the global

order to their will, started the Second World War and lost. 80 years ago, freedom

prevailed because defenders of the order joined hands and arms. Citizens were at the

forefront, and this has not changed. This puts a special obligation and responsibility on

provincial and local authorities which are close to the people. Today’s call is to repeat the

positive experience of the previous generations to rebuild and maintain a rules-based

order where might is not right.

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at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yve1x9zv0o

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North Korea: Back to the Future is no Solution

Michael Reiterer

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OBSERVARE

Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa

e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL. 17 Nº.1, TD 1

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Context: Security, Culture, and Transnational Perspectives

June 2026

ALLIANCE DILEMMAS UNDER THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: ABANDONMENT,

ENTRAPMENT, AND SOUTH KOREA’S STRATEGIC CHOICES

SUNGHWAH KO

sko2392@naver.com

Assistant Professor in the Division of Liberal Arts at Cheongju University (South Korea). She

received her M.A. in International Peace Studies from the University for Peace, Costa Rica and

her Ph.D. from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. Her research focuses on Northeast Asian

security, security dynamics on the Korean Peninsula, and the ROK–U.S. alliance.

Abstract

This study examines the evolution of alliance dynamics under the Trump administration, with

particular attention to the South Korean case and its implications for U.S. alliances. Drawing

on developments in U.S. foreign policy and allied responses, it argues that recent shifts have

significantly altered perceptions of alliance reliability. The administration’s approach—marked

by unpredictability and unconventional communication—has intensified allied uncertainty,

reshaping strategic expectations and behavior. In the case of South Korea, these dynamics

have contributed to a reassessment of strategic dependence and a growing emphasis on self-

reliant defense capabilities. The study conceptualizes alliance dilemmas through the twin risks

of abandonment and entrapment, where allies must balance the danger of being left

unprotected against the risk of being drawn into unwanted conflicts. Applying this framework

to the South Korean case, the analysis shows how heightened uncertainty under the Trump

administration reinforced both concerns: fears of abandonment encouraged greater

consideration of autonomous defense strategies, while concerns over entrapment highlighted

the potential costs of alliance commitments, particularly in crisis scenarios involving regional

escalation. Building on these findings, the study argues that alliance dynamics under

conditions of uncertainty have broader implications for U.S. hegemony and the stability of the

alliance system. The erosion of trust in U.S. commitments has contributed to a shift toward

strategic autonomy among allies, challenging the cohesion of the hub-and-spokes structure.

At the same time, the emergence of coordinated allied responses suggests that alliance politics

are increasingly shaped by perceptions of leadership credibility rather than material

asymmetries alone. These trends underscore the centrality of predictability and trust in

sustaining alliance stability and, by extension, the durability of U.S. hegemonic leadership.

Keywords

Alliance Dilemma, U.S. Alliances, Trump Administration, South Korea, Strategic Autonomy.

Resumo

Este estudo analisa a evolução da dinâmica das alianças sob a administração Trump, com

especial destaque para o caso da Coreia do Sul e as suas implicações para as alianças dos

EUA. Com base na evolução da política externa dos EUA e nas reações dos aliados, defende

que as recentes mudanças alteraram significativamente as perceções quanto à fiabilidade das

alianças. A abordagem da administração — marcada pela imprevisibilidade e por uma

comunicação não convencional — intensificou a incerteza dos aliados, remodelando as

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Alliance Dilemmas Under the Trump Administration: Abandonment, Entrapment, and South

Korea’s Strategic Choices

Sunghwah Ko

expectativas e o comportamento estratégicos. No caso da Coreia do Sul, estas dinâmicas

contribuíram para uma reavaliação da dependência estratégica e para uma ênfase crescente

nas capacidades de defesa autossuficientes. O estudo conceptualiza os dilemas da aliança

através dos riscos duplos de abandono e aprisionamento, em que os aliados devem equilibrar

o perigo de ficarem desprotegidos com o risco de serem arrastados para conflitos indesejados.

Aplicando este quadro ao caso da Coreia do Sul, a análise mostra como a incerteza acentuada

sob a administração Trump reforçou ambas as preocupações: os receios de abandono

encorajaram uma maior consideração de estratégias de defesa autónomas, enquanto as

preocupações com o aprisionamento destacaram os custos potenciais dos compromissos da

aliança, particularmente em cenários de crise que envolvem uma escalada regional. Com base

nestas conclusões, o estudo argumenta que a dinâmica das alianças em condições de

incerteza tem implicações mais amplas para a hegemonia dos EUA e a estabilidade do sistema

de alianças. A erosão da confiança nos compromissos dos EUA contribuiu para uma mudança

no sentido da autonomia estratégica entre os aliados, desafiando a coesão da estrutura «hub-

and-spokes». Ao mesmo tempo, o surgimento de respostas aliadas coordenadas sugere que

a política de alianças é cada vez mais moldada por perceções de credibilidade da liderança,

em vez de apenas por assimetrias materiais. Estas tendências sublinham a centralidade da

previsibilidade e da confiança na manutenção da estabilidade das alianças e, por extensão,

da durabilidade da liderança hegemónica dos EUA.

Palavras-chave

Dilema das Alianças, Alianças dos EUA, Administração Trump, Coreia do Sul, Autonomia

Estratégica.

How to cite this article

Ko, Sunghwah (2026). Alliance Dilemmas Under the Trump Administration: Abandonment,

Entrapment, and South Korea’s Strategic Choices. Janus.net, e-journal of international relations

VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1 – Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula in a Global Context: Security,

Culture, and Transnational Perspectives, June 2026, pp. 24-40. DOI

https://doi.org/10.26619/1647-7251.DT0426.2

Article submitted on February 14, 2025 and accepted for publication on March 30, 2026.

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Alliance Dilemmas Under the Trump Administration: Abandonment, Entrapment, and South

Korea’s Strategic Choices

Sunghwah Ko

ALLIANCE DILEMMAS UNDER THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION:

ABANDONMENT, ENTRAPMENT, AND SOUTH KOREA’S

STRATEGIC CHOICES

SUNGHWAH KO

Introduction

U.S. Leadership and Alliance Challenges under Trump

From the Cold War through the post–Cold War period, and now in the context of a

possible New Cold War, the United States has sought to sustain the international order it

constructed. This effort has involved shifting its strategic focus across regions and, when

necessary, recalibrating its commitments by redirecting resources inward. Despite these

adjustments, one element has remained constant: the United States has continued to

view itself as the leader of the international order. It has also retained a sense of duty

associated with its role as a global security provider, regardless of fluctuations in its

relative power. Over time, its long-standing allies and partners—although not always

experiencing favorable conditions—have generally supported the direction of U.S.

leadership, sometimes alongside it and at other times in a more supportive capacity.

Today, the world is experiencing the second term of President Donald Trump. The

accumulated costs of sustaining a global security role have contributed to a relative

decline in U.S. power, and in this context, President Trump’s representative slogans such

as “Make America Great Again” and “America First” reflect a broader strategic rationale.

However, as these ideas have been translated into policy, the U.S. has increasingly

moved away from the center of global governance and the existing international order.

The Trump administration places less emphasis on international issues and collective

problem-solving, leaving states more frequently to manage their own or international

challenges. This tendency is particularly visible in the security domain, where reduced

U.S. engagement has, in some cases, left allies exposed or effectively abandoned. At the

same time, as the U.S. distances itself from long-standing partners, it has occasionally

shown ambiguity in distinguishing between allies and adversaries.

In the meantime, the administration maintains a strongly U.S.-centered approach in its

expectations toward allies. When cooperation is deemed necessary, it relies on pressure

to enforce burden-sharing. The difficulty, however, is that such pressure often places

allies in situations they neither prefer nor willingly accept, thereby creating conditions of

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Korea’s Strategic Choices

Sunghwah Ko

entrapment. The administration appears to assume that when it initiates competition or

conflict with adversaries, the associated costs should be shared by its allies. In some

cases, these situations emerge from highly contingent or individualized decision-making

processes. Regardless of the legitimacy of such conflicts, and irrespective of whether

allied consensus exists, the U.S. has at times framed its demands in terms of repayment

for past security commitments.

Under these conditions, long-standing U.S. allies are increasingly uneasy with what they

perceive as indiscriminate pressure and an asymmetrical alliance relationship.

Additionally, as the U.S. appears to retreat from its traditional role in maintaining the

international order—without presenting a clear alternative vision—other states are

reassessing their strategic direction. A broader shift toward self-help is becoming more

evident, accompanied by a stronger emphasis on national interest and growing

skepticism regarding the credibility of U.S. security guarantees. As a result, efforts to

strengthen autonomous defense capabilities are intensifying. Against this backdrop, this

study examines, the risks of abandonment and entrapment under the Trump

administration from the perspective of South Korea, through the framework of the

alliance dilemma.

Research Frame: Alliance Dilemma

Although the scope of the term ‘alliance’ has recently expanded to encompass multiple

domains—including military, economic, and energy cooperation—its underlying logic and

ultimate purpose remain closely tied to state survival and the use of military power.

K In an anarchic international system, states prioritize survival above all else. As Kenneth

Waltz (1979) argues, security constitutes the primary objective of states, as only when

survival is ensured can they pursue other goals such as economic gain or political

influence. Building on this logic, Stephen Walt (1989) explains that alliances are formed

primarily in response to external threats. States facing such threats seek to aggregate

power through cooperation in order to deter or counter potential adversaries.

Walt further conceptualizes alliances as formal or informal arrangements for security

cooperation among states, designed to enhance the power, security, and influence of

their members. (Walt, 2009) In a similar vein, Glenn Snyder (1990) defines alliances as

formal associations oriented toward the use or restraint of military force, intended to

advance the security or broader interests of member states in relation to specific

adversaries. Taken together, these perspectives highlight that alliances are

fundamentally instruments for strengthening security, power, and military capability.

This study adopts the concept of the ‘alliance dilemma’ developed by Glenn Snyder, which

builds upon and extends Waltz’s ‘Balance of power’ and Walt’s ‘Balance of threat’

frameworks. Snyder (1984) conceptualizes alliance politics in terms of the dual risks of

abandonment and entrapment, which vary according to the level of commitment among

allied states. When a state demonstrates a high level of commitment to an alliance, the

risk of abandonment by its partner tends to decrease. However, this also increases the

likelihood of entrapment in conflicts initiated by the ally. Conversely, when commitment

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to an alliance is weak, the risk of entrapment declines, but the probability of

abandonment increases (Snyder, 1984).

Alliance Abandonment risk under the Trump Administration

Burden-Sharing and Conditional Alliance Commitment

U.S. military forces are stationed across various regions of the world, and South Korea

is no exception. Since the establishment of the alliance following the Korean War in 1953,

U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) have remained a central component of the bilateral security

arrangement. Over the course of this alliance, the possibility of troop withdrawal or

reduction has repeatedly emerged as a policy option in last 70 years (Ko, 2004). Such

discussions are therefore not new. However, under the Trump administration, this issue

gained renewed salience. Reports suggest that President Trump at one point considered

the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea, although this proposal was

ultimately constrained by internal opposition within the administration ((Lee et al., 2018,

as cited in Longo, 2026).

In addition, the Trump administration departed from previous approaches by demanding

a substantial increase in defense cost-sharing. This was not merely a matter of financial

burden. Rather, it reflected a broader tendency to treat the alliance as a transactional

arrangement, thereby devaluing its strategic and normative foundations. Trump’s

rhetoric frequently relied on cost–benefit calculations, reducing alliance relations to

quantifiable terms. Such an approach fails to capture the non-material dimensions of the

alliance, including trust, shared commitment, and the historical depth of bilateral

cooperation. Moreover, these statements were often presented without clear

methodological grounding, which contributed to uncertainty among allied partners. The

use of striking numerical claims, seemingly intended to strengthen bargaining leverage,

was at times perceived as dismissive or even humiliating by the counterpart.

For example, Trump once remarked that “getting US$1 billion from South Korea was

easier than collecting rent from a Brooklyn apartment,” a statement that appears to have

been aimed at mobilizing domestic political support (Hwang, 2019). At the same time, it

conveyed an implicit expectation that South Korea should accept a subordinate position

in security negotiations while bearing a greater financial burden. This pattern persisted

in subsequent political discourse. During later campaign periods, South Korea continued

to be portrayed as underpaying, and was even described as a “money machine,”

alongside repeated references to sharply increased financial demands (Kim & Lee, 2024).

In practice, South Korea responded to these pressures by negotiating the initially

proposed cost-sharing levels downward, while still agreeing to a significant increase

(Statistics Korea, n.d.). This outcome can be interpreted as an effort to mitigate the risk

of abandonment by maintaining the credibility of the alliance commitment.

Beyond direct financial demands, the administration also signaled a willingness to link

economic cooperation to security considerations. The Korea–U.S. Free Trade Agreement

(KORUS FTA) was at times framed in terms that suggested the possibility of termination,

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Korea’s Strategic Choices

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implying that economic relations could be leveraged to extract concessions in the security

domain (Lester et al., 2019). While the U.S. had previously exerted pressure on South

Korea’s autonomy in times of crisis—such as during the 1997 Asian financial crisis—these

instances were primarily driven by economic considerations (Ko, 2024). In contrast,

under the Trump administration, security commitments themselves appeared to function

as a form of leverage.

Taken together, these findings indicate a shift toward a transactional understanding of

alliances, in which economic pressure is used to shape security outcomes. This approach

reinforces the perception that alliance ties are conditional rather than stable. It suggests

that if expected economic terms are not met, the alliance may become a point of

vulnerability. In this sense, the credibility of U.S. security commitments is increasingly

subject to negotiation, thereby heightening concerns over abandonment within the

alliance.

Selective Engagement and Alliance Marginalization

South Korea experienced what was widely described as ‘Korea passing,’ a development

that reflected a diminished recognition of its value as an ally. Beginning in 2018, President

Moon Jae-in actively pursued engagement with North Korea. Through inter-Korean

summits, South Korea played a key role in bringing North Korea to the negotiating table

on denuclearization and in facilitating a summit between Kim Jong Un and President

Trump. In structural terms, the configuration was relatively straightforward. Although

three actors were involved, it was expected that South Korea and the U.S. would

coordinate as allies in negotiating with a common adversary. Previous rounds of

denuclearization diplomacy had also demonstrated that close coordination between Seoul

and Washington was essential, even when their specific preferences diverged.

In this case, however, the two allies approached the issue from different starting points.

South Korea prioritized the improvement of inter-Korean relations as a pathway toward

denuclearization, whereas the Trump administration treated denuclearization itself as the

primary objective. Despite these differences, sustained communication would have been

necessary if the two countries were to act as a unified negotiating partner. In practice,

however, the process unfolded differently. South Korea, despite being a central

stakeholder and a key facilitator of the talks, was largely excluded from the core

negotiations, which proceeded in a bilateral format between the U.S. and North Korea.

The resulting outcome—often referred to as ‘Korea passing’—can be attributed, in part,

to the persistent gap in preferences between the parties.

The significance of this episode lies not only in the failure of the negotiations, but also in

what it revealed about alliance coordination. Having experienced repeated difficulties in

advancing North Korean denuclearization, South Korea and the U.S. faced a context in

2018–2019 that required careful and coordinated alliance management. Instead of close

consultation, however, South Korea was, in effect, ‘deliberately’ sidelined. This suggests

that when policy preferences diverge, the U.S. may choose to act independently rather

than pursue alignment within the alliance framework (Song, 2024). For South Korea, it

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implied that even as a directly affected party and formal ally, its position could be

disregarded when it did not align with U.S. intentions.

This dynamic became more visible with the U.S.–North Korea summit held in Singapore.

During this period, President Trump made several statements that raised concerns about

alliance management. In particular, he expressed a desire to withdraw U.S. forces

stationed in South Korea and referred to joint U.S.–South Korea military exercises as

‘war games,’ subsequently announcing their suspension. These remarks were made

without prior consultation with South Korea and did not follow established coordination

procedures within the alliance (Borger, 2018). Such actions suggest that alliance

commitments can be treated as instruments of negotiation and used as leverage

depending on the counterpart. This dynamic is particularly notable given that the

negotiation counterpart was North Korea—an actor defined as a common adversary

alongside South Korea, and one that President Trump had previously provoked by

referring to its leader as “rocket man.” This contrast highlights the impulsive and

unpredictable nature of his approach.

Taken together, the overall developments indicate that the U.S. under the Trump

administration, at times treated South Korea less as a partner in joint strategy and more

as a subordinate actor within a hierarchical relationship. This pattern is consistent with

theoretical expectations that a major power providing security guarantees may seek to

constrain the autonomy of its ally. In this context, the unilateral and coercive aspects of

U.S. policy signaled the possibility of abandonment, contributing to a situation in which

South Korea faced pressure to accommodate U.S. preferences (Jo & Park, 2026).

South Korea’s choice under the signals of abandonment

At the outset of President Trump’s first term, U.S. allies and partners closely observed

his campaign rhetoric, which often appeared to downplay the value of alliances and frame

them in terms of economic gains and losses. Trump expressed a firm belief that U.S.

allies were engaging in free-riding, and his direct, often improvised statements—

frequently made without adherence to established procedures—generated uncertainty

regarding the future direction of U.S. policy.

This concern was reinforced early in his presidency as the U.S. suddenly withdrew from

several multilateral agreements, including the Paris Climate Agreement, the Iran nuclear

deal (JCPOA), and the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-

Pacific Partnership). These actions contributed to the perception that U.S. commitments

could be reversed unpredictably. As a result, even alliance commitments—traditionally

grounded in trust and shared security interests—appeared vulnerable to reassessment

based on cost–benefit calculations. The proposal known as ‘Cost Plus 50,’ which called

for a substantial increase in allied contributions, further amplified these concerns

(Pettyjohn, 2019). Under such conditions, U.S. allies faced a situation in which failure to

meet economic expectations could lead to severe consequences, including the risk of

abandonment.

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South Korea also was not an exception. The Korean Peninsula has remained in a state of

armistice for more than seventy years, with North Korea continuing to advance its nuclear

capabilities. As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), South Korea

has adhered to non-nuclear commitments while remaining fully aware of the costs

associated with nuclear armament. Under conditions of persistent nuclear asymmetry,

South Korea has no other option but to rely on the U.S. nuclear umbrella as a central

component of its security. In this context, the Trump administration’s perceived

willingness to downplay South Korea’s security concerns—along with the possibility that

its survival might not be consistently prioritized, or could be treated as a bargaining

instrument in negotiations with other states—generated both concern and heightened

threat perception within South Korean society.

During his first term, the alliance appeared to loosen to a noticeable degree. The

subsequent administration under President Joe Biden sought to restore alliance cohesion

and reaffirm solidarity. The U.S. and South Korea reiterated their commitment to a robust

bilateral alliance and also pursued expanded trilateral security cooperation with Japan.

However, it is difficult to conclude that the decline in trust experienced during the

previous period was fully reversed. With the return of a second Trump administration,

South Korea again faces uncertainty regarding U.S. policy direction. This concern is

shaped not only by prior experience during the first term, but also by the expectation

that institutional or political constraints on presidential decision-making may be weaker,

thereby allowing for more unilateral and less predictable actions. In this context, the

intensity of Trump’s rhetoric and pressure is expected to persist, if not increase.

With the return of a second Trump administration, South Korea was once again

confronted with fears stemming from policy unpredictability. These concerns were not

entirely new, but had already been internalized during the first term. At the same time,

the second administration brought an additional dimension of uncertainty. Compared to

the earlier period, there was a growing perception that fewer institutional or political

constraints existed to moderate President Trump’s unilateral rhetoric and decision-

making, reinforcing expectations of more unrestrained and assertive behavior.

Furthermore, the intensity of his rhetoric and pressure was not expected to ease; if

anything, it was anticipated to escalate rather than moderate.

Through these developments, South Korea came to recognize that alliance commitments

are not unconditional and may be subject to abandonment. This realization underscored

the risks of relying exclusively on the U.S. for security. Even as efforts were made to

repair the existing strains within the alliance, the resolve to strengthen autonomous

defense capabilities had already intensified.

As North Korea’s nuclear program continued to advance, public support in South Korea

for either indigenous nuclear development or the redeployment of U.S. nuclear weapons

had already been substantial, at times exceeding 50 percent (Sun, 2024). Although this

result showed some fluctuations, survey outcomes indicate that the experience of the

first Trump administration contributed to a significant increase in such preferences,

largely driven by heightened concerns over abandonment (Lee et al., 2023; Chung,

2024). In sum, the signals of potential abandonment under the Trump administration

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generated both a sense of insecurity and a growing conclusion within South Korea that a

greater degree of strategic autonomy from its ally was necessary.

Alliance Entrapment risk under the Trump Administration

Escalatory Rhetoric toward North Korea and Risks South Korea faced

From the outset of his presidency, Trump appeared unwilling to tolerate regimes pursuing

illicit nuclear proliferation. In retrospect, even in the early phase of the first term, the

Trump administration considered the use of military force as a possible option to halt

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. The U.S. had previously refrained from using

force against North Korea—despite its relative weakness in conventional terms—not only

because of the anticipated costs of war or the potential involvement of regional powers

such as China and Russia, but also due to concerns over the significant damage that

would be inflicted on South Korea. Given the shared historical and political context on

the Korean Peninsula, U.S. policy had traditionally taken into account South Korea’s

position.

However, the Trump administration introduced a different approach by placing greater

emphasis on the military option in addressing the North Korean nuclear issue, which had

long been managed through non-military means such as sanctions, deterrence, and

diplomatic engagement (Power, 2017). At the same time, North Korea’s nuclear and

missile capabilities coincidentally advanced rapidly, contributing to a qualitative

escalation of the crisis.

In July 2017, North Korea successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM),

raising concerns that U.S. territories, including Alaska and Guam, had entered its range

(Karako & Williams, 2017). In response, President Trump issued a strong warning to

North Korea, including the well-known “fire and fury” statement, which implied the

possibility of preemptive action. North Korea responded in kind, issuing statements that

signaled its willingness to strike the U.S. mainland. Compared to previous

administrations, which had tended to rely on calibrated and restrained language to avoid

escalation, Trump’s rhetoric was widely viewed by experts as unusually emotional and

extreme. This raised concerns that such language could increase the risk of

miscalculation and misunderstanding at a critical level of tension (Hirschfeld, 2017).

Subsequently, North Korea continued its weapons development, launching ICBMs

assessed to be capable of carrying nuclear warheads and conducting its sixth nuclear

test. In response, President Trump further escalated his rhetoric, including references to

a possible ‘bloody nose’ strike. As the situation intensified, the level of confrontation

between the U.S. and North Korea continued to rise without clear limits. Under these

conditions, South Korea and Japan—both located within close proximity to the potential

conflict zone—faced the risk of being entrapped in a rapidly escalating crisis driven by

U.S.–North Korea confrontation.

Concerns also emerged within the United States regarding the risks posed to allied states

in East Asia, as well as opposition to the level of escalation associated with the Trump

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Korea’s Strategic Choices

Sunghwah Ko

administration’s approach (Cha,2018). In response, South Korean President Moon Jae-

in, as a directly affected party, sought to reduce tensions between the U.S. and North

Korea. In order to avoid entrapment in a potential conflict and to prevent further

escalation toward war on the Korean Peninsula, he emphasized that military conflict was

unacceptable. At the same time, he pursued engagement with North Korea while

maintaining communication with the U.S., ultimately facilitating the conditions for

trilateral summit, despite the abandonment that later emerged in the negotiation

process.

Unilateral Escalation in Iran and Entrapment Pressures on Allies

During President Trump’s tenure, there were numerous consequential developments in

U.S. relations with other states. Among them, one of the most destabilizing events—

generating widespread concern among multiple countries—was the U.S. strike against

Iran in 2026. Although this occurred approximately one year into the second Trump

administration, the conditions leading to such an outcome can be traced back to 2018,

when the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action

(JCPOA). From that point onward, it became increasingly foreseeable that U.S. allies

involved in the agreement could face risks of entrapment.

The JCPOA was originally a multilateral agreement involving six major powers—the U.S.,

China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany—negotiated with Iran.

Following its implementation, continuous monitoring by the International Atomic Energy

Agency (IAEA) did not produce conclusive evidence that Iran had violated the agreement

(International Atomic Energy Agency, 2017). Nevertheless, the Trump administration

assessed the terms of the JCPOA as insufficient and announced a unilateral withdrawal.

At one level, this decision disregarded the positions of other participating states, including

key U.S. allies such as the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. More broadly, it can

be interpreted as a move of abandonment within the alliance context. Furthermore, the

lack of clearly substantiated justification for this decision led to reluctance among allied

states to support the reimposition of sanctions against Iran (Jakes & Sanger, 2020). This,

in turn, contributed to concerns that major foreign policy decisions of the U.S. were being

driven by individual leadership preferences, thereby undermining trust among states (De

Witte & Gabel, 2018).

Following the collapse of the agreement, tensions between the U.S. and Iran escalated.

Iran responded through actions such as the seizure of oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.

In addition, Saudi Arabia—one of the U.S. key partners in the Middle East—had already

experienced attacks on its oil facilities, including the 2019 strike on Aramco. In response,

the Trump administration implemented maximum-level sanctions and carried out military

actions, including the targeted killing of Qasem Soleimani, widely regarded as a senior

Iranian military figure. Although these developments did not escalate into full-scale war,

they significantly heightened military tensions. In parallel, Iran accelerated its nuclear

activities following the breakdown of the agreement and subsequent attacks, expanding

uranium enrichment capabilities and operating advanced centrifuges.

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Korea’s Strategic Choices

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Under the Biden administration, efforts were made to revive nuclear negotiations with

Iran, but these attempts met repeated cycles of progress and suspension, ultimately

failing to accomplish a renewed agreement. At the end of Biden’s administration, renewed

instability in the Middle East emerged following Hamas’s attack on Israel. Shortly after

returning to office in 2025, President Trump initiated a new round of nuclear negotiations

with Iran. However, within a short period—reportedly as soon as the following month—

the U.S. launched a surprise strike on Iranian nuclear facilities using bunker-buster

munitions. Subsequently, the Trump administration justified further military action by

claiming the detection of an “imminent threat,” conducting joint strikes with Israel that

targeted senior Iranian leadership, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In response,

Iran warned that the U.S. had crossed a critical red line, and the possibility of direct

U.S.–Iran war became a tangible reality observed by the international community.

At present, Iran has moved to exert control over the Strait of Hormuz, posing a severe

military threat by restricting the passage of oil tankers belonging to the U.S. and its allies

and partners. Contrary to earlier expectations by the Trump administration that the

situation would be resolved quickly, this development introduced an unanticipated level

of disruption. In the end, the U.S. called upon its allies—including European countries,

South Korea, and Japan—to participate in the case more actively. However, when

European states, particularly those within NATO, collectively declined to engage, the

Trump administration defined his call as a “test” of alliance commitment and proceeded

to explore ceasefire negotiations with Iran independently.

This sequence of events illustrates the extent to which the Trump administration

approached alliances in instrumental and asymmetric terms. The decision to strike Iran

was marked by a lack of transparent justification and proceeded without sufficient

domestic support or prior consultation with allied states. Only after encountering strategic

difficulties did the administration turn to its allies, not through cooperative coordination,

but through pressure framed as requests for deployment, thereby attempting to draw

them into the conflict. Given Iran’s geopolitical significance in global energy security,

allied states had strong incentives to approach such involvement extra cautiously not to

be entrapped together.

In the case of South Korea, dependence on imported energy reaches approximately 90

percent, with around 70 percent of oil imports passing through the Strait of Hormuz. As

tensions escalated, oil prices rose by approximately 20 percent within two weeks

compared to pre-crisis levels. Although the South Korean government sought to respond,

the prolonged nature of the conflict—contrary to initial U.S. expectations—led to rising

costs in oil-related products, including rubber and plastics, as well as increased exchange

rate volatility. These effects are directly hitting the public. While the Iranian ambassador

to South Korea stated that South Korea is not a hostile state, he also implicitly suggested

that non-cooperation with the U.S. would be conditional for this position (Seo, 2026).

In this context, the reluctance of allies to participate in military deployment was met by

the Trump administration’s characterization of the situation as a test of commitment.

This framing, alongside attempts to reduce a matter involving national survival and

human security to rhetorical positioning, can be interpreted as reflecting a diminished

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regard for alliance relationships. As of March 28, 2026, President Trump issued

statements indicating that the United States would “remember” those countries—

including South Korea—that had not deployed naval forces to the Strait of Hormuz,

signaling pressure on allies to share responsibility by becoming involved in the conflict.

In this context, considering the situation where the allied states are put in seriously

difficult position to gladly support military deployment, President Trump framing the

situation as a test of alliance commitment represents both the pressure and devaluation

of alliance. Addressing an issue involving national survival and the lives of citizens in this

manner can be interpreted as indicating a diminished regard for the alliance. As of March

28, 2026, the administration also signaled pressure toward countries—including South

Korea—again that had not dispatched naval forces to the Strait of Hormuz, stating that

he would “remember” their decisions, while attempting to draw them into the conflict

and share the burden of responsibility.

South Korea’s choice under the signals of abandonment

The first Trump administration marked the period in which strategic competition between

the U.S. and China became more pronounced. In effect, the intensifying U.S.–China

rivalry placed many allied states in a difficult position, as they were implicitly pressured

to align with one side. For many allies, this created an untenable dilemma: either distance

themselves from China—one of the world’s largest economic powers—and align with the

U.S., thereby risking entrapment in great-power competition, or face the possibility of

being labeled disloyal and subjected to abandonment by the Trump administration.

Nevertheless, this study does not treat U.S.–China competition as a central case of

entrapment. At least, it can be understood as part of a broader and largely unavoidable

structural shift in the international order. Despite the confrontational nature of its

implementation, such competition was widely regarded as a rational and, to some extent,

legitimate course of action for the U.S., whether as a hegemonic power or as a principal

architect of the existing international order. Although the Trump administration did not

consistently frame this rivalry in terms of defending the liberal international order, the

overall direction—maintaining a U.S.-led order and responding to a perceived primary

threat—remained aligned with long-standing strategic objectives. For this reason, it was,

at least in part, a development that could be understood in rational terms.

By contrast, other cases reflected decisions whose justification was less clearly

established, leading other states into heightened tension alongside the U.S. In some

instances, these actions appeared less defensive in nature and more offensive, while also

lacking transparency and facing domestic opposition within the U.S. itself. Despite these

concerns, the Trump administration continued to exert pressure on allies to participate

in addressing such crises. First, the U.S. in practice pressured—or indirectly compelled—

allies to become involved in complex and high-risk situations. Second, even in cases

where direct participation was avoided, U.S. actions contributed to the creation of

security environments that posed both direct and indirect threats to allied states.

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Korea’s Strategic Choices

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Following the Iran crisis, for example, U.S. military assets stationed in South Korea—

including systems such as THAAD, which had been deployed at significant economic cost

due to Chinese retaliation—were reportedly redeployed to the Middle East. During this

period, North Korea continued its missile tests and military demonstrations. Amid

growing concerns over a potential security vacuum, South Korean President Lee Jae-

myung emphasized once again the necessity of strengthening autonomous defense

capabilities. This included caution against excessive reliance on the U.S. and calls for the

timely transfer of wartime operational control (Lee, 2026).

More broadly, Trump administration’s decision makings and overall remarks suggest that

the survival of allied states was definitely not consistently treated as a primary

consideration. In some cases, U.S. actions brought outcomes that were favorable to

actors previously regarded as threats—not only to the liberal international order but also

to U.S. allies themselves. Such consequences were controversial for other allied states

to accept on rational or strategic grounds. Moreover, there appeared to be insufficient

consideration of whose security and survival were being placed at risk. These patterns

can be understood less as outcomes of a coherent and institutionalized U.S. foreign

policy, and more as consequences of President Trump’s individualized and often

unpredictable rhetoric and decision-making.

Now, the world is raising a fundamental question: when a geographically distant power

such as the U.S. generates conditions that heighten security risks for its regional allies,

to what extent are those allies willing to bear such risks? Furthermore, even in the event

of direct military involvement by the U.S., there remained a credible concern that the

U.S. will only prioritize its own interests over those of its allies. In this context,

heightened tensions with North Korea or also gave rise to concerns about the potential

for alliance decoupling, reflecting a logically grounded apprehension among regional

partners (Panda, 2017).

Implication: The Alliance Dilemma and the Erosion of U.S. Hegemonic

Leadership

First, the U.S.’s long-standing allies appear to be experiencing a decline in trust toward

the U.S. However, such a conclusion should not be drawn hastily. The dynamics in U.S.–

alliance relations since 2012 must be understood in light of individual leadership factors,

particularly the personal characteristics and decision-making style of President Trump.

At the same time, it is necessary to acknowledge that within the U.S., there have also

been political forces—such as the Biden administration—that have sought to prioritize

alliances and strengthen solidarity.

Nevertheless, over the past decade, U.S. allies have directly encountered a fundamental

reality of international politics: that alliances are not permanent, even among long-

standing partners. The decades of effort, trust-building, and institutionalization of a

liberal international order and regional security architecture since World War II have been

relatively undervalued, while the possibility of abandonment has become more visible

and explicit. As a result, allies have increasingly sought strategies for survival

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independent of the U.S., leading to efforts to reduce dependence and strengthen

domestic capabilities.

At the same time, under conditions of unpredictability associated with Trump

administration, allies have also faced heightened risks of entrapment. This reflects a

paradoxical dynamic in which allies that perceive the U.S. as less committed—and

therefore potentially susceptible to abandonment—are simultaneously subjected to

demands for higher levels of commitment and participation, thereby increasing their

exposure to entrapment risks. For weaker allies embedded in asymmetric alliance

structures, such pressures can be particularly severe. As of March 28, this dynamic

appears to have contributed to growing solidarity among U.S. allies—especially in

Europe—against what they perceive as excessive or destabilizing actions by the U.S.,

thereby making divisions between the U.S. and its allies more visible.

Second, this context carries an important implication for the U.S. itself: it, too, must

learn a critical lesson. In alliance politics, abandonment typically is more desperate when

a stronger partner distances itself from a weaker ally, highlighting the importance of

credible commitments. Historically, the U.S. has often been perceived as the primary

actor capable of abandoning its allies. However, circumstances surrounding the Iran crisis

suggest that a reverse dynamic is also possible—namely, that allied states can

collectively form solidarity and, under certain conditions, effectively distance themselves

from a hegemonic power.

Even though the U.S. may be experiencing relative decline, it still retains the status of a

hegemon. Yet, this case demonstrates that hegemonic status alone does not guarantee

continued support from allies. When a hegemon fails to provide consistent justification

for its actions or engages in persistent, unpredictable, or impulsive security policies, it

risks losing the trust of its allies. Under such conditions, allies and partners may choose

to realign or withdraw support.

The U.S.-centered security architecture has traditionally been described as a ‘hub-and-

spokes’ , in which the hegemon (the hub) determines the overall direction and the allies

(the spokes) follow accordingly. However, recent flow suggests that the spokes are no

longer unconditionally bound to follow the hub. The U.S. must recognize that allies are

increasingly capable of pursuing independent strategies.

Third, as is typical in most presidential systems, a government’s policy direction is often

attributed to the sitting president. The U.S. is no exception, and policies and decisions

made during the Trump administration are commonly associated with President Trump

himself. However, the distinctive feature of the Trump administration lies in its mode of

communication: rather than relying on established bureaucratic processes and

institutional channels, policy announcements were often made directly through the

president’s personal statements or social media.

This approach frequently resulted in inconsistencies, including instances where

statements were later retracted or corrected. As a consequence, global perceptions of

U.S. policy became increasingly volatile, often shifting in response to a single statement.

This pattern has also raised doubts about the consistency and reliability of U.S. foreign

policy. Rather than reacting immediately to Trump’s statements, other states increasingly

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Korea’s Strategic Choices

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adopt a wait-and-see stance, anticipating potential reversals. As a result, confidence in

U.S. foreign policy has weakened. At a time when the U.S. is already facing relative

decline as a global hegemon, such consequences further contribute to a perception that

the U.S. has lost a reliable and trusted leadership role, regardless of its actual material

capabilities.

Fourth, it is necessary to reconsider whether the increasing emphasis on self-reliance

among U.S. allies ultimately contributes to the maintenance of U.S. influence. From the

perspective of the international community, the Trump administration’s demands—

particularly regarding NATO burden-sharing and financial contributions—are not entirely

unreasonable, especially in the context of a perceived decline in U.S. power. However,

U.S. dominance is historically reinforced by the asymmetrical dependence of allies,

particularly in terms of nuclear deterrence and military capabilities.

If allies were to move toward greater autonomy, or even develop independent nuclear

capabilities, as implied by concerns over abandonment, it raises the question of whether

the U.S. could continue to effectively manage or be influential on its allies. Increased

autonomy may lead not only to independent foreign policies but also to greater risks of

regional conflicts. In such a scenario, it is worth questioning whether the U.S. could

remain insulated from these developments. Ultimately, maintaining a pattern of frequent

abandonment and entrapment dilemmas within alliances may undermine U.S. interests

rather than strengthen them.

Concluding this paper, Robert Gilpin (1981) defines a hegemon as a state that possesses

not only economic strength but also political and military power. This conceptualization

highlights the comprehensive nature of hegemonic power that underpins the U.S. status

and its role maintaining international relations, including the ROK–U.S. alliance. The role

of a hegemon within an alliance can further be understood through Charles Kindleberger’s

framework of Hegemonic Stability Theory. According to Kindleberger (1973), a hegemon

plays a central role by possessing both the capacity and the willingness to provide public

goods within the international system, thereby exercising leadership. Moreover, the

stability of the international system depends not only on the material capabilities of the

hegemon but also, crucially, on its willingness to lead. This emphasis on willingness is

also reflected in the work of Keohane and Nye (1973), who argue that a hegemonic

system is sustained “when one state is powerful enough to maintain the essential rules

governing interstate relations, and willing to do so.”

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OBSERVARE

Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa

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Context: Security, Culture, and Transnational Perspectives

June 2026

FROM SOLIDARITY TO SURVIVAL: AN ANALYSIS OF THE TRANSITION OF

SECURITY PERCEPTIONS IN THE KOREAN DIGITAL PUBLIC SPHERE DURING

THE UKRAINE WAR USING KOBERT

HAYANN LEE

bulgariyann@hufs.ac.kr

Research Professor at the Institute of European Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

(Republic of Korea). She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Sofia University “St. Kliment

Ohridski.” Her research specializations include European integration and identity, Eastern Europe,

EU–South Korea relations, the Brussels Effect, and global regulatory politics. She also focuses on

energy transition, climate governance, and digital and cultural policy in Europe.

(https://orcid.org/0009-0000-4536-1844).

Abstract

This study examines how security perceptions in Korea’s digital public sphere shifted in

relation to the Ukraine war. Drawing on 101,900 items of portal news comments and YouTube

news comments collected between 2022 and 2025, it applies sentiment-based discourse

analysis using KoBERT. Rather than relying on a simple positive–negative split, the analysis

classifies discourse into seven emotion categories and then consolidates them into security-

relevant dimensions—threat perception, hostility, and humanitarian solidarity—to trace how

emotional configurations evolve over time. The results indicate that Korea’s security framing

moved from an initially value-oriented stance centered on humanitarian solidarity, through a

period of economic pragmatism as the war prolonged, and then shifted markedly toward an

existential, survival-oriented mode following reports of North Korean troop deployments. This

transition is captured by the Security Sentiment Transfer Index (SSTI) developed in this study,

which rose from 0.85 in the outbreak phase to 4.80 during the deployment period. The pattern

suggests that when external security crises become linked to domestically salient conditions,

public interpretation tends to converge on survival concerns while normative evaluation

recedes. Platform-level comparisons further show that SSTI values are consistently higher on

YouTube than on portal news comments, with the largest divergence observed during the

deployment period. This gap aligns with the role of visually driven content and

recommendation dynamics in intensifying high-arousal emotions such as fear and anger. In

addition, keyword-weight analysis identifies concrete terms—most notably “conscription” and

“nuclear”—as salient triggers associated with the sharpest increases in SSTI, indicating that

perceived proximity to personal safety and national vulnerability amplifies security sensitivity.

Taken together, the findings underscore the importance of the emotional configuration of

digital discourse as a factor in shifts in security perception. The study therefore argues that

national crisis management may benefit from security communication strategies that address

the public’s perceived existential risk and micro-level anxieties, rather than treating security

messaging as a one-way transmission of situational information.

Keywords

Ukraine War, Security Sentiment Transfer, KoBERT, Security Sentiment Transfer Index

(SSTI), North Korean Deployment, Digital Public Sphere.

JANUS.NET, e-journal of International Relations

e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1

Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and

Transnational Perspectives

June 2026, pp. 41-57

From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security Perceptions in the

Korean Digital Public Sphere During the Ukraine War Using Kobert

Hayann Lee

Resumo

Este estudo analisa como as perceções de segurança na esfera pública digital da Coreia se

alteraram em relação à guerra na Ucrânia. Com base em 101 900 comentários de notícias em

portais e no YouTube recolhidos entre 2022 e 2025, aplica uma análise do discurso baseada

no sentimento utilizando o KoBERT. Em vez de se basear numa simples divisão entre positivo

e negativo, a análise classifica o discurso em sete categorias emocionais e, em seguida,

consolida-as em dimensões relevantes para a segurança — perceção de ameaça, hostilidade

e solidariedade humanitária — para traçar a forma como as configurações emocionais evoluem

ao longo do tempo. Os resultados indicam que o enquadramento de segurança da Coreia

passou de uma postura inicialmente orientada para os valores, centrada na solidariedade

humanitária, passando por um período de pragmatismo económico à medida que a guerra se

prolongava, para depois se deslocar marcadamente para um modo existencial, orientado para

a sobrevivência, na sequência de relatos sobre o destacamento de tropas norte-coreanas.

Esta transição é captada pelo Índice de Transferência de Sentimento de Segurança (SSTI)

desenvolvido neste estudo, que subiu de 0,85 na fase de eclodimento para 4,80 durante o

período de mobilização. O padrão sugere que, quando as crises de segurança externas se

ligam a condições internamente salientes, a interpretação pública tende a convergir para

preocupações de sobrevivência, enquanto a avaliação normativa recua. As comparações ao

nível das plataformas mostram ainda que os valores do SSTI são consistentemente mais

elevados no YouTube do que nos comentários dos portais de notícias, com a maior divergência

observada durante o período de mobilização. Esta diferença está em consonância com o papel

do conteúdo visual e da dinâmica de recomendação na intensificação de emoções de alta

excitação, como o medo e a raiva. Além disso, a análise de ponderação de palavras-chave

identifica termos concretos — mais notavelmente «recrutamento» e «nuclear» — como

gatilhos salientes associados aos aumentos mais acentuados no SSTI, indicando que a

proximidade percebida com a segurança pessoal e a vulnerabilidade nacional amplifica a

sensibilidade à segurança. Em conjunto, as conclusões sublinham a importância da

configuração emocional do discurso digital como um fator nas mudanças na perceção de

segurança. O estudo defende, portanto, que a gestão de crises nacionais pode beneficiar de

estratégias de comunicação de segurança que abordem o risco existencial percebido pelo

público e as ansiedades ao nível micro, em vez de tratar as mensagens de segurança como

uma transmissão unidirecional de informação situacional.

Palavras-chave

Guerra na Ucrânia, Transferência de Sentimento de Segurança, KoBERT, Índice de

Transferência de Sentimento de Segurança (SSTI), Desdobramento da Coreia do Norte, Esfera

Pública Digital.

How to cite this article

Lee, Hayann (2026). From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security

Perceptions in the Korean Digital Public Sphere During the Ukraine War Using Kobert. Janus.net,

e-journal of international relations VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1 – Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula

in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and Transnational Perspectives, June 2026, pp. 41-57. DOI

https://doi.org/10.26619/1647-7251.DT0426.3

Article submitted on December 31, 2025 and accepted for publication on January 31,

2026.

JANUS.NET, e-journal of International Relations

e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1

Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and

Transnational Perspectives

June 2026, pp. 41-57

From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security Perceptions in the

Korean Digital Public Sphere During the Ukraine War Using Kobert

Hayann Lee

FROM SOLIDARITY TO SURVIVAL: AN ANALYSIS OF THE

TRANSITION OF SECURITY PERCEPTIONS IN THE KOREAN

DIGITAL PUBLIC SPHERE DURING THE UKRAINE WAR USING

KOBERT

HAYANN LEE

Introduction

Digital media platforms such as YouTube and online news portals have become primary

sources of information in contemporary daily life. Through these platforms, the public is

routinely exposed to large volumes of information on international affairs and security

issues. Even without direct experience of events, people form their own perceptions of

conflict and violence through mediated images and texts. Social cognitive theory

(Bandura, 2009, p. 96) describes this process as learning through indirect experience

and suggests that media information can serve not only perceptual functions but also as

a basis for concrete judgment.

The Ukraine war, which began in 2022, illustrates the influence of digital discourse in this

regard. In the early stage of the war, public discussion in Korea tended to frame the

conflict as a threat to the liberal order in Europe, accompanied by expressions of

humanitarian solidarity. As the war prolonged, however, economic strain and fatigue

gradually altered the tone of discussion. Reports in late 2024 concerning the deployment

of North Korean troops to Russia constituted a turning point, leading many to reassess

the war not as a distant conflict but as a material threat linked to security on the Korean

Peninsula.

Such perceptual changes are often more visible in news comments and YouTube

discussions than in survey results (Potter, 2014, p. 17). Reactions to the same news

story frequently include a mixture of fear, anger, cynicism, and solidarity. These

responses go beyond opinion expression and contribute to emotional frameworks through

which war and security are understood. In this sense, digital discourse functions less as

a passive reflection of information than as a space where uncertain international security

environments are interpreted and given meaning in emotional terms.

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research

Foundation of Korea (NRF –2022S1A5C2A02091292).

JANUS.NET, e-journal of International Relations

e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1

Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and

Transnational Perspectives

June 2026, pp. 41-57

From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security Perceptions in the

Korean Digital Public Sphere During the Ukraine War Using Kobert

Hayann Lee

Previous sentiment analysis research has largely accumulated around short texts with

relatively simple emotional structures, such as movie comments or product reviews.

While these approaches have achieved technical progress, they face limitations in

analyzing international conflicts where political context and emotion overlap, as in the

Ukraine war often contain context-dependent expressions, and emotional direction may

shift with narrative development and situational cues (Kim et al., 2022). When such

materials are processed using short-text-oriented sentiment analysis methods, it

becomes difficult to capture emotional flow and cumulative effects within discourse.

In this context, tracing changes in emotional framing with an advanced Korean pretrained

model such as KoBERT provides a timely means of empirically examining how security

perceptions in Korean society are reorganized. This study therefore seeks to track

changes in emotional framing in the Korean digital public sphere from the outbreak of

the Ukraine war in 2022 through 2025. Given the frequent overlap of emotional

expressions in security discourse, it applies the logic of the sentiment combination model

and the layered model proposed in prior studies and evaluates their analytical usefulness.

To this end, the study poses the following research questions:

Research Question 1. How do the relative weight and prevalence of humanitarian

solidarity and security threat/hostility frames change across key phases of the Ukraine

war (outbreak, stalemate, and deployment period), and how does the SSTI vary

accordingly in the Korean digital public sphere?

Research Question 2. Between context-level and sentence-level analysis of news

comments, which approach is more suitable for capturing the multi-layered emotional

structure of security discourse while maintaining classification performance (accuracy

and recall)?

Research Question 3. When the European security crisis intersects with the factor of

North Korean troop deployment, how is Korean public interpretation restructured from

value-oriented readings toward survival-oriented perceptions as reflected in the SSTI?

KoBERT, a model adapted from Google’s BERT to better reflect Korean linguistic

characteristics, is used as the main analytical tool. Whereas BERT was primarily trained

on English-language corpora, KoBERT was pretrained on datasets that include Korean

comments and colloquial expressions and has been evaluated as showing relatively stable

performance in the analysis of unstructured Korean text (SKT Brain, 2019).

Rather than relying on a simple positive–negative dichotomy, the study reconstructs

security discourse using seven discrete emotions, including anger, fear, and sadness. It

combines post hoc integration of emotional categories with a dual-classifier approach and

employs the AI Hub Korean emotion dataset for training. The collected portal news

comments and YouTube news comments were preprocessed and used for model training

and comparative performance evaluation.

Applying sentiment analysis to the broader context of international politics and security

discourse, rather than limiting it to technical classification, constitutes a central academic

contribution of this study. In particular, by treating the emotional structure of the digital

public sphere as a meaningful variable in explaining changes in security perception, the

JANUS.NET, e-journal of International Relations

e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1

Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and

Transnational Perspectives

June 2026, pp. 41-57

From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security Perceptions in the

Korean Digital Public Sphere During the Ukraine War Using Kobert

Hayann Lee

study draws attention to emotional dynamics that have received limited attention in prior

research.

Theoretical Background

Reconfiguring the Digital Public Sphere and Security Discourse

In its traditional sense, the public sphere has been structured around institutionalized

actors—such as the press, political parties, and civil society organizations—that produce

and mediate discourse (Habermas, 1989, p. 36; Kim Sujeong, 2021, p. 42). Within this

space, political issues have typically been filtered and refined through established norms

and formats, and citizens’ views have tended to be expressed through limited channels.

The spread of digital platforms, however, has fundamentally altered the very threshold

of entry into the public sphere (Papacharissi, 2010, p. 74). News comments, YouTube

reactions, and social media posts now operate not as peripheral opinions but as core

discursive arenas through which the substantive meaning of events is constituted

(Chadwick, 2013, p. 119).

The defining character of the digital public sphere extends beyond accessibility. The rapid

circulation of information and the accumulation of reactions accelerate the diffusion of

controversy, and a notable feature of this process is that emotional and intuitive

interpretations often take precedence over carefully developed argumentation. This

tendency becomes more pronounced in domains such as foreign policy and security,

where informational asymmetries are substantial and direct experience is limited. Before

encountering official policy documents or expert assessments, people often first register

and interpret events through platforms in a sensory and immediate manner. In this

respect, the digital public sphere is not simply a tool for measuring public opinion; it is a

dynamic site in which events are translated into social meaning.

News comments provide a useful empirical window into the structure of public perception.

Comments do more than signal agreement or disagreement with journalistic narratives;

they also present competing emotional frames—such as empathy, vigilance, and

cynicism—through which events are to be read. This space is thus less a mere

aggregation of individual views than a setting in which an affective atmosphere around

a given issue is formed and amplified. Analyzing the digital public sphere, therefore, is

closely connected to tracing the pathways through which social interpretations of events

take shape.

Security issues, in turn, tend to connect with more fundamental perceptions of threat

and survival. Once a given fact is named and received as a “threat,” emotional

involvement becomes difficult to avoid; fear expands uncertainty, while anger intensifies

demands for attribution of responsibility and encourages preferences for hardline

responses. By contrast, solidarity can strengthen moral legitimacy, and cynicism may

translate into declining trust in policy more broadly (Marcus et al., 2000, p. 54; Mercer,

2010, p. 8). These emotions should not be treated simply as obstacles to rational

judgment. Rather, they often play a central role as cognitive cues through which the

public seeks to make sense of complex international conditions.

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e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1

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Transnational Perspectives

June 2026, pp. 41-57

From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security Perceptions in the

Korean Digital Public Sphere During the Ukraine War Using Kobert

Hayann Lee

Moreover, emotions continue to shift as events unfold. War is not a single, discrete

incident but a prolonged process, within which informational framing and the direction of

threat perception are repeatedly reorganized (Kim Dohyeon, 2022, p. 91). The affective

texture of security discourse can, through repetition and accumulation, harden into a

dominant interpretive frame or turn toward a new one. The digital public sphere is

precisely where such perceptual shifts tend to be registered most quickly and most

sensitively.

Emotional Politics and Emotional Framing

The conventional assumption that political judgment is primarily the product of rational

calculation has been repeatedly revised in recent political communication research. The

perspective commonly referred to as emotional politics does not treat emotion as an

irrational residue to be excluded; instead, it understands emotion as a core resource that

shapes political perception and choice (Nussbaum, 2013, p. 23; Seo Bokgyeong, 2019,

p. 18). When the public seeks to grasp distant and complex events—such as war or

economic sanctions—emotion often functions as the point at which information

processing begins.

In this study, an emotional frame refers to a structural pattern of affect that is repeatedly

invoked in the interpretation of a particular event. It is not the result of mechanically

summing sentiment scores from individual sentences. Rather, it is an analytical concept

designed to capture which emotions become dominant in a given period, and how those

emotions come to function as the central axis of interpretation.

In protracted crisis contexts such as war, emotional frames do not remain fixed. Shifts

in international responses, the dynamics of domestic politics, or unexpected external

shocks can repeatedly relocate the center of gravity of public sentiment. For this reason,

identifying emotional frames requires more than a snapshot at a single point in time; it

calls for a time-series perspective capable of tracing structural change as it unfolds. This

is also why relational analysis is necessary—for example, examining how initially diffuse

fear may come to combine with anger, and how such affective combinations may be

translated into concrete political attitudes, including support for or opposition to policies.

Linking to European Security Change and Korean Digital Discourse

For Korean society, the Ukraine war was not merely a conflict in a distant region; it was

an event that could be readily connected to the existing security landscape shaped by

the North Korean nuclear threat, alliance structures, and great-power rivalry. When

public emotion shifts from humanitarian concern grounded in moral sympathy for others

to an existential perception of threat tied to national survival, a rapid structural

reconfiguration of the emotional frame becomes possible. This study concentrates on

empirically tracing when such affective thresholds emerge and through what contexts

they become reinforced.

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VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1

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Transnational Perspectives

June 2026, pp. 41-57

From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security Perceptions in the

Korean Digital Public Sphere During the Ukraine War Using Kobert

Hayann Lee

At the same time, the war made visible a major turning point in European security order—

marked by the renewed emphasis on military power, the reconfiguration of alliances, and

the recalibration of threat perception. The intense political and social debates that

followed within Europe are not simply consumed in Korea as external developments.

Rather, they operate as a decisive reference point that confronts Koreans with the

strategic choices states must make under conditions of extreme war, and with the

opportunity costs entailed by those choices, thereby prompting renewed consideration of

the substantive weight of security.

Accordingly, European responses can be interpreted in connection with the possibility of

contingency on the Korean Peninsula. Once policy changes in Europe become objects of

contestation in Korea’s digital public sphere, the war is transformed from international

news into a standard of comparison. This transformation becomes more explicit when it

is coupled with affective structure.

Discourse surrounding the Ukraine war contains both normative and realist

interpretations at the same time (Barbieri et al., 2023, p. 318). On one side, international

norms and value-based solidarity are emphasized; on the other, a strong view persists

that state choices are ultimately determined by national security and interests. This

tension recurs within Korea’s digital public sphere as well. Some comments underscore

the imperative of solidarity, while others adopt a cynical posture grounded in calculations

of cost and risk.

When value frames and national-interest frames coexist, emotions do not move along a

single line. Even in periods when solidarity and empathy are dominant, fear and anger

can move to the foreground once an external shock occurs or a linkage to threat becomes

more salient. It is in this sense that the present study accounts for these dynamics as a

shift in emotional framing.

Trends in Digital Sentiment Analysis

Advances in natural language processing have led to the rapid expansion of sentiment

analysis research on Korean texts. Unstructured materials—such as comments, reviews,

and social media posts—can be collected at scale, and sentiment classification models

offer the advantage of rendering such data analyzable in structured form. In particular,

the emergence of pretrained language models has substantially improved sentiment

classification performance in Korean and enabled a broad range of applied studies (Lee

et al., 2023, p. 104225; Park Jungeun, 2022, p. 506).

At the same time, sentiment analysis research has repeatedly exposed a gap between

technical performance and social-scientific interpretation. The question of how accurately

a model classifies texts is not identical to the question of what those results mean socially.

When addressing high-level political phenomena such as security discourse, it is therefore

necessary to combine interpretive frameworks capable of making sense of sentiment

outputs with a carefully designed unit of analysis.

Much of the relevant literature has focused primarily on refining classification accuracy

or improving model architecture in engineering terms. The orientation of this study,

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e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1

Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and

Transnational Perspectives

June 2026, pp. 41-57

From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security Perceptions in the

Korean Digital Public Sphere During the Ukraine War Using Kobert

Hayann Lee

however, does not rest on competition over technical superiority as such. Its central

concern is to determine what substantive explanatory leverage sentiment analysis can

secure within research on international politics and security perceptions. For this purpose,

the analysis closely examines (1) how sentiment classification strategies are refined and

(2) how differences in the unit of analysis (sentence-level versus context-level) generate

variation in the interpretation of results. Ultimately, the focus of this study lies not only

in “how accurately the model classifies” but in what can be brought into view about the

underlying contours of Korean society through the data.

Research Methodology

This study seeks to empirically examine how the global security shock of the Ukraine war

has generated emotional waves in Korea’s digital public sphere and how these, in turn,

have redirected public security perceptions. To this end, the study moves beyond the

classification of sentiment at the level of individual sentences and adopts a pretrained

language model–based emotional discourse analysis (PLM-based Emotional Discourse

Analysis) framework that considers how structural shifts in affect reflect changes in

security perception paradigms. As the primary analytical model, KoBERT—a Transformer-

based model optimized for Korean unstructured data—was selected in order to maintain

analytical efficiency and precision while avoiding the high computational costs typically

associated with large language models (LLMs).

The central premise guiding this study is that public perceptions of war do not remain

fixed but are continuously reconfigured in emotional terms in response to the

development of events and external shocks. In the Korean context, the Ukraine war was

initially received largely as a humanitarian tragedy affecting others. As the conflict

persisted, and especially with the introduction of the variable of North Korean troop

deployment, it reached a critical turning point at which it came to be reinterpreted as a

tangible threat directly linked to national security (Eom, 2022, p. 174). This study

conceptualizes this perceptual shift as a dynamic movement from a phase of solidarity

grounded in universal values to a phase of survival rooted in existential threat perception.

To examine this empirically, the research process was organized into four stages. First,

digital text data related to the Ukraine war were collected and refined. Second, a KoBERT-

based sentiment classification model tailored to security discourse was constructed.

Third, the SSTI was calculated to quantify changes in public security perceptions based

on sentiment distributions. Fourth, the structure of emotional discourse was compared

across different phases of the war to identify patterns of perceptual transition.

Data Collection and Preprocessing

The dataset consists of portal news comments and YouTube news comments related to

the Ukraine war, collected between February 2022 and December 2025. These materials

represent core data from the digital public sphere that capture spontaneous and informal

public perceptions not easily observed through conventional surveys. The initial dataset

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VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1

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Transnational Perspectives

June 2026, pp. 41-57

From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security Perceptions in the

Korean Digital Public Sphere During the Ukraine War Using Kobert

Hayann Lee

comprised 101,900 entries and subsequently underwent multi-stage cleaning to ensure

analytical reliability.

To mitigate data imbalance across major phases of the war (Periods A–D), stratified

sampling was applied. Comments unrelated to security issues—including partisan

attacks, purely personal emotional expressions, advertisements, and spam—were

removed through regular-expression–based filtering. This step was taken to prevent

distortion of sentiment analysis results by political noise or meaningless text.

During text preprocessing, special characters were removed and normalization

procedures were applied, followed by tokenization using KoBERT’s SentencePiece

tokenizer. SentencePiece-based subword tokenization is well suited to processing Korean

particles, colloquial forms, and neologisms, making it appropriate for analyzing

unstructured texts such as news comments and comments.

Security-Oriented Sentiment Classification Strategy

Rather than directly adopting emotional categories commonly used in sentiment analysis,

this study attempts to reclassify emotions in ways that reflect the specific nature of

security discourse. This approach rests on the assumption that emotions function not

merely as individual feelings but within broader political and security-related meaning

systems.

The first strategy follows a baseline sentiment classification that applies the seven

emotional categories in the AI Hub dataset (neutral, anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness,

and surprise) to identify overall sentiment distributions. This serves as a reference point

for subsequent analyses.

The second strategy, termed security-driven consolidation, restructures functionally

similar emotions in light of their political implications within security perception research.

Fear and surprise were grouped as threat perception, given their shared role as

immediate responses to perceived external danger. Anger and disgust were integrated

under hostility, as both express outward rejection toward specific actors. Sadness,

reflecting moral sympathy toward civilian suffering and the tragedy of war, was

reinterpreted as an indicator of humanitarian solidarity.

This consolidation of categories is not a technical adjustment aimed at improving

classification accuracy. Rather, it represents an analytical decision intended to more

clearly capture the broader directional tendencies of security perceptions underlying

fragmented emotional data.

The third strategy, contextual weighting, addresses limitations arising from treating

individual comments as isolated units. Instead of analyzing each comment

independently, original comments and their subsequent replies were grouped into a

single discursive unit. This design reflects the observation that perceptions of security

threats are shaped not only by individual reactions but also through interaction and

debate with others. It allows the analysis to trace how particular emotions circulate and

intensify within the public sphere. In this sense, the digital public sphere is approached

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June 2026, pp. 41-57

From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security Perceptions in the

Korean Digital Public Sphere During the Ukraine War Using Kobert

Hayann Lee

not as a static collection of opinions but as a dynamic discursive space where emotions

and perceptions interact and evolve.

Development of the SSTI

To directly link the distribution of emotions in the data to structural changes in public

security perceptions, this study develops and introduces the SSTI. SSTI quantifies how

public cognitive frames shift from a normative phase grounded in universal values and

moral sympathy toward an existential phase prioritizing national survival and material

risk in response to exogenous shocks such as the Ukraine war. In other words, the index

is designed to measure when and to what extent the perception of an external tragedy

becomes internalized as one’s own security concern. The formula for calculating the index

is as follows.

𝑆𝑆𝑇𝐼 = 𝐸Threat + 𝐸Hostility

𝐸Solidarity

The numerator, consisting of 𝐸Threat and 𝐸Hostility, captures the degree to which the external

conflict is internalized as an existential risk connected to security on the Korean

Peninsula, along with emotional expressions of fear and hostility toward perceived threat

actors. The denominator, 𝐸Solidarity, represents the emotional weight of moral sympathy

that views the conflict as the tragedy of others from a universal human rights perspective.

A distinctive feature of the index is that neutral and cynical responses are treated as

background values and excluded from the calculation to highlight substantive attitudinal

change. This allows shifts in emotional dominance between value-based and survival-

oriented orientations to appear more clearly. An SSTI value exceeding 1 indicates a

structural break in which threat perception outweighs moral solidarity. This point is

interpreted as a threshold of domestication, where an external security shock is

translated into a personal or national concern.

For analysis, the pretrained KoBERT model was fine-tuned on a security discourse–

specific dataset. Model performance was evaluated primarily using accuracy and recall.

In the context of security discourse, the ability to detect subtle threat signals—such as

fear or anger—is crucial for analytical validity. Recall is particularly important as it

indicates how effectively the model captures emotionally charged signals during crisis

situations without omission. This provides a basis for considering how the findings may

inform crisis management policy and security communication strategies.

Results and Discussion

This chapter reports the empirical findings from applying KoBERT-based sentiment

analysis and the SSTI to 101,900 portal news comments and YouTube comments related

to the Ukraine war.

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VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1

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From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security Perceptions in the

Korean Digital Public Sphere During the Ukraine War Using Kobert

Hayann Lee

Table 1. Validity of Periodization and Data Composition

The overall study period was divided into four phases based on points at which major

international developments appeared to coincide with psychological thresholds among

the public and with shifts in the tone of discourse.

Changes in data composition and dominant keywords across periods indicate how Korean

society moved from observing the Ukraine war as an external tragedy affecting others

toward gradually internalizing it as a threat more directly linked to national security. In

this sense, both the quantitative distribution of data and the qualitative evolution of

keywords provide an empirical basis for examining how public interpretive frames were

restructured across turning points.

The number of data points shows a gradual decline from Period A (28,532) to Period C

(22,418). This pattern is consistent with the accumulation of public fatigue and reduced

attentiveness as the war became a routine news item. However, in Period D (26,494),

following reports of North Korean troop deployment, the data volume rose again. This

rebound indicates that public discourse, which had entered a relatively subdued phase,

was reactivated when the conflict became linked to security concerns on the Korean

Peninsula. This can be understood as a form of emotional re-ignition in public attention.

Shifts in high-frequency keywords suggest a three-stage qualitative evolution in public

interpretive frames.

Stage 1 (Period A: Normative Response)

Keywords grounded in universal values, such as #peace and #refugees, were prominent.

The war was frequently approached from a moral perspective, often framed as a violation

of international norms.

Stage 2 (Periods B–C: National-Interest Reframing)

As the war prolonged, keywords directly referencing economic burdens—such as #gas

bills and #price surge—became more visible. This indicates an early phase of

Period

Phase

Key Events and Rationale

Core Keywords

Data

Volume

Outbreak

phase

Russian invasion (Feb 2022).

Discourse centered on humanitarian

support and condemnation.

#peace, #refugees,

#condemnPutin

28,532

Stalemate

phase

Frontline stagnation (from Jan

2023). Growing fatigue as the war

became normalized.

#prolongation,

#ceasefire talks,

#exhaustion

24,456

Economic

crisis phase

Intensified inflation (from Jan

2024). Expansion of cynical,

national-interest–oriented

discourse.

#price surge, #gas

bills, #oil prices

22,418

Deployment

phase

Reports of North Korean troop

deployment (from Nov 2024).

Heightened perception of security

threats.

#NK deployment,

#participation,

#security crisis

26,494

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From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security Perceptions in the

Korean Digital Public Sphere During the Ukraine War Using Kobert

Hayann Lee

domestication in which the war was increasingly interpreted not as others’ suffering but

in terms of personal or national cost.

Stage 3 (Period D: Security Internalization)

Terms closely tied to survival and national defense—such as #NK deployment and

#security crisis—became dominant. In this phase, the war was no longer treated

primarily as a comparative case but was reinterpreted as a direct and material threat to

the peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.

The periodization adopted in this study is not merely chronological. It corresponds to

points at which public psychological thresholds appear to have shifted. The transition

from Period C to Period D aligns with a structural break in the SSTI proposed in this

study. It captures a moment when external shocks were increasingly translated into a

national security narrative and therefore provides a meaningful unit of analysis for

examining perceptual change.

Taken together, the dataset of approximately 100,000 entries displays distinct emotional

structures across periods. This supports the analytical claim that public perception moved

from solidarity-oriented interpretations toward survival-oriented ones, and that the

dataset is sufficient in both scale and content to examine this transition.

The period-based analysis further shows that public attention in Korea’s digital sphere

declined after the initial surge in Period A and dropped notably during the stalemate

phase (B). At the same time, once economic strain became more visible in Period C, the

tone of discourse began to shift from sympathy toward others to concern about one’s

own situation. Period D represents a particularly consequential turning point, as the war

was increasingly redefined not simply as external information but as a matter connected

to survival and security on the Korean Peninsula.

Quantifying the Transfer of Security Perceptions Using SSTI

Table 2. SSTI Values by Period and Structural Break Interpretation

Period

Numerator

𝐸Threat

𝐸Hostility

Denominator

𝐸Solidarity

SSTI

Analytical Interpretation

29.1%

34.2%

0.85

Value-oriented

(solidarity outweighs threat perception)

32.1%

24.6%

1.30

Perceptual reversal

(security concerns become more

prominent)

36.3%

18.1%

2.01

Internalized anxiety

(war repercussions viewed as affecting

national interests)

59.5%

12.4%

4.80

Survival-oriented response (existential

concern dominates discourse)

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From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security Perceptions in the

Korean Digital Public Sphere During the Ukraine War Using Kobert

Hayann Lee

The time-series pattern of the SSTI indicates that security perceptions in Korea’s digital

public sphere do not change in a purely linear manner but exhibit structural breaks

associated with events. Here, the term “structural break” is used descriptively to indicate

discontinuous shifts in SSTI values across periods, rather than formal econometric break

tests.

First, during Period A (the outbreak phase), the SSTI recorded 0.85, the only value below

1.0 across all periods. This reflects a situation in which humanitarian 𝐸Solidarity (34.2%)

exceeded security-related threat factors (29.1%). At this stage, public engagement with

the Ukraine war was largely framed in terms of moral sympathy and humanitarian

solidarity toward a foreign tragedy, while security concerns remained relatively

observational.

Second, across Periods B (stalemate) and C (economic crisis), the index rose stepwise to

1.30 and 2.01, respectively. This pattern corresponds to a cognitive shift in which the

focal point of discourse moved from values to national interests and material costs. The

fact that the SSTI exceeded 2.0 in Period C suggests that the economic repercussions of

the war—such as inflation and rising energy prices—had entered domestic discourse as

tangible concerns. At this stage, the war began to be internalized not merely as an

external event but as a potential threat linked to Korea’s own security and economic

conditions.

Third, in Period D (deployment phase), when reports of North Korean troop involvement

intensified, the SSTI rose sharply to 4.80—approximately 2.4 times higher than in the

preceding period. This represents a marked change relative to earlier phases.

Humanitarian solidarity 𝐸Solidarity which forms the denominator of the index, declined to

roughly one-third of its initial level (12.4%), while threat and hostility factors (59.5%)

became the dominant emotional components in public discourse.

Taken together, the sharp rise in SSTI suggests that when external security shocks

intersect with the concrete variable of North Korean involvement, public perception tends

to move away from normative or moral evaluation toward a survival-oriented frame. This

pattern is consistent with the interpretation that Korea’s digital public sphere functions

as a space where international developments are interpreted and amplified through the

particular security context of the Korean Peninsula.

Across all periods, the YouTube-based public sphere recorded higher SSTI values than

portal news comments, with the gap reaching its maximum (1.90) in Period D. This

pattern is consistent with the interpretation that YouTube’s recommendation system may

cluster users around highly arousing emotions such as fear and anger, a dynamic often

discussed in relation to echo chamber effects.

Whereas text-centered portals tend to host relatively more policy-oriented criticism or

reasoned concern, YouTube’s reliance on visual immediacy can make threats appear

more concrete, potentially heightening perceptions of risk and contributing to higher SSTI

values.

To identify linguistic triggers associated with SSTI escalation, keywords linked to fear

responses were extracted and their influence examined.

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From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security Perceptions in the

Korean Digital Public Sphere During the Ukraine War Using Kobert

Hayann Lee

Table 3. Comparison of SSTI Across Platforms and Gap Analysis

To examine how media characteristics shape the formation and diffusion of security-related

discourse, SSTI values were compared across platforms.

Period

Portal News

Comments

YouTube News

Comments

Gap

Platform-Specific Emotional

Mechanism

0.75

0.95

+0.20

Visual footage of invasion on YouTube

appears to stimulate fear at an earlier

stage

1.10

1.50

+0.40

Amplified exposure to negative

information through YouTube algorithms

1.80

2.22

+0.42

Circulation of sensational economic crisis

narratives on YouTube

3.85

5.75

+1.90

On-site deployment footage appears to

function as a catalyst for SSTI escalation

Table 4. Keyword Weight Analysis Driving SSTI Increases

Rank

Core Keyword

Weight (Standardized

coefficient)

Interpretation Based on Observed

Usage

Nuclear weapons /

nuclear technology

0.92

Existential fear that deployment could

accelerate nuclear advancement

Conscription / draft

0.85

Anxiety framed through family and

military service concerns

World War III

0.78

Framing escalation as a global

historical crisis

Russia–North Korea

alliance

0.71

Hostility tied to perceived disruption of

the security order

The weighting analysis indicates that SSTI reacts more strongly to keywords linked to

bodily safety (conscription) and catastrophic threat (nuclear risk) than to abstract

geopolitical dynamics. This suggests that security discourse becomes more influential

when threats are perceived as emotionally proximate.

The findings are consistent with the view that public communication on security issues

may resonate differently depending on how directly messages address perceived risks to

personal safety and survival.

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From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security Perceptions in the

Korean Digital Public Sphere During the Ukraine War Using Kobert

Hayann Lee

Table 5. Velocity of SSTI Transfer

Event

SSTI

Before

SSTI

After

Change

Time to Threshold and Characteristics

Energy price surge (C)

1.45

2.01

+0.56

Approx. 3 months (economic strain

gradually linked to security concerns)

North Korean

deployment reports (D)

2.01

4.80

+2.79

Within 48 hours (rapid surge associated

with heightened alarm)

Security sensitivity was assessed by measuring how rapidly SSTI values crossed critical

thresholds following major events.

Economic threats in Period C were associated with gradual SSTI increases, whereas

reports of direct military involvement by North Korea in Period D coincided with a sharp

rise over a short time span. This pattern aligns with the interpretation that references to

North Korea carry salience in the Korean context and can quickly reframe public

perception toward security concerns.

Taken together, the findings suggest that Korea’s digital public sphere underwent a

process of domestication in its interpretation of the Ukraine war. What initially appeared

as a distant conflict gradually became framed in relation to Korea’s own security context.

By the later stage (Period D), the SSTI reached 4.80, indicating a marked shift in the

emotional structure of discourse. This shift illustrates how moral or humanitarian frames

can weaken when threats are perceived as personal or nationally relevant.

The results point to the importance of considering the emotional dynamics of digital

discourse in national crisis management and risk communication.

Conclusion

The central finding of this analysis concerns how the external shock of the Ukraine war

reshaped public security perceptions within Korea’s digital public sphere. Tracing the

discursive landscape from 2022 to 2025 shows that public sentiment moved from a phase

of humanitarian solidarity grounded in universal values toward a phase in which

existential concerns about survival became more salient.

This shift provides empirical support for the view that public security perceptions are

influenced less by purely logical reasoning than by emotional thresholds. Normative

discourses that dominated the early stage of the war gradually declined as the conflict

prolonged and economic fatigue accumulated. When the direct variable of North Korean

troop deployment entered discourse, public responses increasingly reflected survival-

oriented interpretations rather than extended deliberation. This pattern is consistent with

the interpretation that Korea’s digital public sphere functions as a sensitive arena where

international developments are interpreted and amplified through the particular security

context of the Korean Peninsula.

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Transnational Perspectives

June 2026, pp. 41-57

From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security Perceptions in the

Korean Digital Public Sphere During the Ukraine War Using Kobert

Hayann Lee

The contribution of this study lies not in technical model competition but in adapting

KoBERT as an analytical tool for research on international politics and security

perceptions. The recategorization of emotions and the use of contextual weighting were

designed to uncover the broader directional tendencies of security perception embedded

in fragmented emotional data, thereby extending the analytical scope of unstructured

data research.

The proposed SSTI further distinguishes this study by offering a quantitative way to trace

when and to what degree international crises are internalized by the public. Treating

comments not as isolated units but as interconnected discursive units reflects an effort

to conceptualize the digital public sphere as a dynamic space where emotions and

perceptions circulate and reinforce one another.

The empirical patterns observed here indicate that contemporary security discourse is

closely intertwined with the emotional dynamics of digital platforms. Accordingly, security

communication may be more effective when considering not only the transmission of

situational information but also the public’s perceived vulnerabilities, including concerns

related to personal safety and military service.

This study does not incorporate detailed demographic characteristics of users, which

remains a limitation. Nevertheless, given the evidence that digital discourse is associated

with shifts in security perception, future research should examine how these emotional

currents translate into voting behavior and concrete policy preferences.

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Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and

Transnational Perspectives

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From Solidarity to Survival: An Analysis of the Transition of Security Perceptions in the

Korean Digital Public Sphere During the Ukraine War Using Kobert

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OBSERVARE

Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa

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VOL. 17 Nº.1, TD 1

Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula in a Global

Context: Security, Culture, and Transnational Perspectives

June 2026

THE UK’S RESET DIPLOMACY TOWARDS THE EU: IMPLICATIONS FOR PEACE

ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA IN THE ERA OF POLYCRISIS

EUICHAN SHIN

081syc@naver.com

Assistant Professor at the Department of European Studies, Dongduk Women’s University, Seoul

(South Korea). Euichan Shin is Assistant Professor at the Department of European Studies at

Dongduk Women’s University. He received his PhD in International Area Studies with a

specialization in the European Union (EU) from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

Abstract

This article examines the United Kingdom’s post-Brexit reset diplomacy toward the European

Union and explores its implications for peace and security on the Korean Peninsula in the era

of polycrisis. Moving beyond the binary framing of rupture versus reversal, it argues that the

reset represents a form of pragmatic diplomacy characterised by selective and functionally

bounded cooperation conducted within enduring political and legal constraints. Conceptually,

the article links polycrisis to a diplomatic environment in which adaptability, risk management,

and issue-specific coordination take precedence, understanding it not merely as the

coexistence of multiple crises but as their interaction across security, economic, and

institutional domains that structurally limits diplomatic choice. Empirically, it shows how the

UK–EU reset has unfolded through incremental initiatives aimed at stabilising interaction in

specific policy areas, while deliberately avoiding the reopening of foundational disputes

associated with Brexit. Building on this analysis, the article extends its framework to the

Korean Peninsula, which is similarly shaped by interacting security dilemmas, great-power

competition, contested sanctions governance, and geoeconomic fragmentation. Rather than

proposing the UK–EU reset as a transferable policy model, it identifies broader analytical

lessons on diplomacy under persistent structural constraint, arguing that peace and security

are more plausibly advanced through multi-vector, issue-specific engagement and strategies

of risk containment than through comprehensive settlement efforts or assumptions of

institutional convergence.

Keywords

Polycrisis, Pragmatic diplomacy, UK–EU reset, Institutional constraints, Korean Peninsula

peace.

Resumo

Este artigo analisa a reorientação da diplomacia do Reino Unido em relação à União Europeia

após o Brexit e explora as suas implicações para a paz e a segurança na Península da Coreia

na era da policrise. Ultrapassando o enquadramento binário entre rutura e reversão, defende

que essa reorientação representa uma forma de diplomacia pragmática, caracterizada por

uma cooperação seletiva e funcionalmente delimitada, conduzida dentro de restrições políticas

e jurídicas duradouras. Conceitualmente, o artigo associa a policrise a um ambiente

diplomático em que a adaptabilidade, a gestão de riscos e a coordenação específica em torno

de questões específicas têm precedência, entendendo-a não apenas como a coexistência de

múltiplas crises, mas como a sua interação nos domínios da segurança, da economia e das

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The UK’s Reset Diplomacy Towards the EU: Implications for Peace

on the Korean Peninsula in the Era of Polycrisis

Euichan Shin

instituições, o que limita estruturalmente as opções diplomáticas. Empiricamente, mostra

como o reinício das relações entre o Reino Unido e a UE se desenrolou através de iniciativas

incrementais destinadas a estabilizar a interação em áreas políticas específicas, evitando

deliberadamente a reabertura de disputas fundamentais associadas ao Brexit. Com base nesta

análise, o artigo alarga o seu quadro à Península Coreana, que é moldada de forma

semelhante por dilemas de segurança interativos, competição entre grandes potências,

governação contestada das sanções e fragmentação geoeconómica. Em vez de propor o

reajustamento das relações entre o Reino Unido e a UE como um modelo de política

transferível, identifica lições analíticas mais amplas sobre a diplomacia sob restrições

estruturais persistentes, argumentando que a paz e a segurança são promovidas de forma

mais plausível através de um envolvimento multivetorial e específico a cada questão e de

estratégias de contenção de riscos do que através de esforços de resolução abrangentes ou

pressupostos de convergência institucional.

Palavras-chave

Policrise, Diplomacia pragmática, Reajustamento das relações entre o Reino Unido e a UE,

Restrições institucionais, Paz na Península Coreana.

How to cite this article

Shin, Euichan (2026). The UK’s Reset Diplomacy Towards the EU: Implications for Peace on the

Korean Peninsula in the Era of Polycrisis. Janus.net, e-journal of international relations VOL. 17 Nº.

1, TD 1 – Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and

Transnational Perspectives, June 2026, pp. 58-75. DOI https://doi.org/10.26619/1647-

7251.DT0426.4

Article submitted on December 31, 2025 and accepted for publication on February 9,

2026.

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The UK’s Reset Diplomacy Towards the EU: Implications for Peace

on the Korean Peninsula in the Era of Polycrisis

Euichan Shin

THE UK’S RESET DIPLOMACY TOWARDS THE EU: IMPLICATIONS

FOR PEACE ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA IN THE ERA OF

POLYCRISIS

EUICHAN SHIN

Introduction

The post-Brexit trajectory of the United Kingdom’s relationship with the European Union

(EU) has frequently been interpreted through a dichotomous lens of rupture versus

reversal. Early policy narratives following the 2016 referendum emphasised regulatory

autonomy, strategic diversification, and the pursuit of a “Global Britain” agenda beyond

Europe. Yet, nearly a decade after Brexit, this binary framing has proven insufficient for

capturing the evolving dynamics of UK–EU relations. As post-withdrawal legal

arrangements have intersected with wider geopolitical and economic disruptions, the

space for either sustained strategic detachment or institutional reintegration has become

increasingly constrained.

Rather than maintaining a posture of confrontation or seeking a return to pre-Brexit

integration, the UK has gradually adopted a calibrated approach toward the EU that

prioritises functional cooperation within the limits of the post-Brexit settlement. This

recalibration became politically explicit following the Labour Party’s return to government

in July 2024. The new government articulated its European policy as a “reset” of relations

with the EU, explicitly distancing this strategy from any intention to reverse Brexit or to

re-enter core integration frameworks such as the Single Market or the Customs Union.

Parliamentary briefings describe this approach as one aimed at reducing friction and

improving cooperation while preserving the legal and political outcomes of withdrawal

(UK Parliament, 2025a).

The concept of “reset diplomacy,” as employed by the UK government, thus denotes an

effort to normalise relations and enhance policy coordination without reopening the

foundational terms of Brexit. Importantly, this approach frames cooperation as a practical

and technical matter rather than a symbolic or constitutional one. By emphasising

continuity with the existing legal architecture, the reset seeks to depoliticise aspects of

UK–EU interaction while leaving core sovereignty claims formally untouched.

This paper argues that the UK’s reset diplomacy toward the EU is best understood as an

adaptive response to conditions of polycrisis. Polycrisis refers to the interaction and

mutual reinforcement of multiple crises including geopolitical, economic, security-related,

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The UK’s Reset Diplomacy Towards the EU: Implications for Peace

on the Korean Peninsula in the Era of Polycrisis

Euichan Shin

and institutional that together constrain policy options more severely than any single

crisis in isolation (Lawrence et al., 2024). In the European context, the prolonged war in

Ukraine, energy insecurity, disruptions to global supply chains, and the economic

adjustment costs associated with Brexit form an entangled crisis environment. Recent

scholarship emphasises that polycrisis should be treated not as a temporary phase, but

as a durable condition characterised by persistent uncertainty and the erosion of clear

crisis-exit strategies. Under such conditions, policy approaches premised on rigid

sovereignty or comprehensive disengagement tend to generate escalating costs.

Three structural pressures are particularly relevant in shaping the UK’s reset diplomacy.

First, the deterioration of the European security environment since 2022 has reinforced

the strategic importance of close coordination among European states. Although the UK

remains firmly embedded in NATO, the war in Ukraine has highlighted operational and

industrial interdependencies linking European security actors, including EU institutions

and non-member partners (European Council, 2025a). This has increased the practical

relevance of EU-level coordination even for states formally outside the Union.

Second, uncertainty surrounding the future orientation and reliability of U.S. global

engagement has encouraged European governments to diversify security cooperation

and strengthen regional coordination mechanisms. This context has sharpened incentives

for structured UK–EU engagement in defence and security-related areas, particularly

where transatlantic guarantees alone appear insufficient.

Third, domestic economic pressures linked to post-Brexit trade frictions have generated

growing demand for targeted forms of cooperation with the EU. Regulatory divergence

has produced tangible costs in areas such as agri-food trade and carbon pricing, where

small and medium-sized enterprises embedded in EU-facing supply chains are

particularly exposed (UK Parliament, 2025b).

Within this environment, reset diplomacy can be characterised as a form of pragmatic

diplomacy. In this paper, pragmatic diplomacy refers to an interest-driven, problem-

oriented approach that prioritises practical outcomes over ideological coherence or

comprehensive institutional alignment. Rather than pursuing either full regulatory

autonomy or deep reintegration, pragmatic diplomacy operates through modular and

sector-specific arrangements that can be negotiated incrementally and adjusted over

time. Such an approach is particularly suited to polycrisis conditions, where overlapping

risks and political uncertainty limit the feasibility of comprehensive bargains.

Empirically, the UK–EU reset has unfolded through a series of concrete initiatives since

2023, gaining momentum after the 2024 change of government. These include the

restoration of regular political summitry, efforts to construct a new framework for

strategic partnership, and negotiations over partial economic and regulatory

coordination. While none of these developments amount to a reversal of Brexit, they

collectively represent a shift away from confrontation toward managed cooperation.

Beyond the European case, this paper suggests that the UK’s reset diplomacy offers

analytically relevant insights for South Korea. The Korean Peninsula is likewise situated

within a polycrisis environment shaped by great-power rivalry, alliance uncertainty,

economic fragmentation, and persistent security dilemmas. The value of this comparison

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The UK’s Reset Diplomacy Towards the EU: Implications for Peace

on the Korean Peninsula in the Era of Polycrisis

Euichan Shin

lies not in institutional similarity, but in the shared condition of constraint under which

diplomacy unfolds. Examining how a middle power such as the UK navigates cooperation

and autonomy under crisis entanglement contributes to broader discussions on

diplomatic strategies for maintaining peace and stability in environments where

comprehensive solutions remain politically and structurally out of reach.

Polycrisis and Pragmatic Diplomacy: A Theoretical Framework

Polycrisis and State Behaviour under Structural Constraint

The concept of polycrisis has gained analytical prominence as scholars have sought to

capture the growing complexity and instability of the contemporary global order. Unlike

conventional crisis frameworks that treat shocks as discrete, sequential, and sectorally

bounded, polycrisis refers to a condition in which multiple crises interact and reinforce

one another across domains. These interactions generate systemic effects that cannot

be adequately understood through linear or compartmentalised analysis.

The intellectual origins of the concept can be traced to Edgar Morin’s critique of modern

governance, which emphasised the interdependence of economic, political, ecological,

and social systems. Morin argued that crises in complex societies do not simply

accumulate over time. Instead, they become mutually constitutive, gradually eroding the

capacity of institutions to respond through reductionist or siloed approaches (Morin &

Kern, 1999). This insight is particularly relevant for contemporary international politics,

where policy responses in one domain increasingly produce indirect consequences in

others.

Building on this tradition, Lawrence et al. (2024) define global polycrisis as the causal

entanglement of crises spanning multiple global systems, in which interconnected

dynamics significantly diminish collective prospects. They identify three mechanisms

through which polycrisis unfolds. Common stresses exert simultaneous pressure on

multiple systems, while domino effects allow shocks to propagate across policy domains.

Over time, feedback loops further intensify instability. This formulation shifts analytical

attention away from the frequency or scale of individual crises and toward the structural

conditions under which crises interact.

Within European studies, polycrisis has become a central lens for interpreting governance

dynamics since the late 2000s. Zeitlin, Nicoli, and Laffan (2019) argue that the EU’s

experience of overlapping crises, including financial instability, migration pressures,

Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine, has not produced a uniform

trajectory of either integration or disintegration. Instead, polycrisis has reshaped political

incentives and institutional practices. This has contributed to differentiated integration,

the use of experimental policy instruments, and a growing reliance on informal

coordination. Importantly, this literature emphasises that polycrisis does not determine

outcomes in advance. Rather, it alters the constraints within which political actors

operate.

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The UK’s Reset Diplomacy Towards the EU: Implications for Peace

on the Korean Peninsula in the Era of Polycrisis

Euichan Shin

From a broader international relations perspective, polycrisis affects state behaviour by

increasing uncertainty, shortening decision horizons, and heightening sensitivity to

cumulative and indirect effects. In such environments, the costs of policy rigidity rise

substantially. Strategies grounded in ideological consistency, whether they prioritise

sovereignty maximalism or normative integrationism, risk generating spillover effects

that undermine performance in adjacent domains. As a result, states embedded in dense

networks of interdependence increasingly prioritise flexibility, reversibility, and risk

management in their external relations.

Polycrisis thus introduces a form of structural constraint that differs from traditional

accounts centred on power asymmetry or formal institutional dependence (Lawrence et

al., 2024). Constraints arise not only from external actors or legal rules, but also from

the interaction of crises that narrow the range of politically and economically viable

choices. This perspective helps explain why states may pursue cooperation even in the

absence of trust or normative alignment. Under conditions of polycrisis, cooperation

becomes less a reflection of shared values and more a pragmatic response to systemic

risk.

For the United Kingdom, the post-Brexit period coincides with precisely such a condition

of structural constraint. Economic adjustment costs associated with withdrawal from the

EU, the destabilisation of European security following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, energy

insecurity, and uncertainty surrounding transatlantic relations together constitute a

sustained polycrisis environment. These overlapping pressures increase the relative costs

of prolonged confrontation with the EU and make selective cooperation a rational

adaptation rather than a normative concession. In this sense, polycrisis does not merely

provide background context for UK–EU relations. It actively reshapes the strategic

calculus through which post-Brexit diplomacy is conducted.

Pragmatic Diplomacy as an Adaptive Response to Polycrisis

Within environments characterised by structural constraint and persistent uncertainty,

pragmatic diplomacy emerges as a distinctive mode of foreign policy adaptation. In this

article, pragmatic diplomacy refers to an interest-driven and problem-oriented approach

that prioritises practical outcomes over doctrinal coherence or comprehensive

institutional alignment. Rather than seeking to resolve underlying political conflicts or to

establish stable end-states, pragmatic diplomacy focuses on managing immediate

challenges within the limits imposed by domestic politics, institutional arrangements, and

external pressures.

The conceptual roots of pragmatic diplomacy can be traced to philosophical pragmatism,

which emphasises experimentalism, learning through practice, and the evaluation of

ideas based on their consequences rather than their conformity to abstract principles.

Friedrichs and Kratochwil (2009) introduce this orientation into international relations

scholarship by arguing that pragmatism enables policy-makers to navigate complex

environments through selective and situational reasoning. From this perspective,

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diplomatic action is guided less by theoretical consistency than by assessments of

feasibility under specific conditions.

In practical terms, pragmatic diplomacy manifests itself in several recurring patterns.

Cooperation is typically organised around discrete policy areas rather than

comprehensive agreements. Institutional arrangements are treated as provisional and

subject to adjustment, rather than as fixed endpoints. Fragmentation and differentiated

participation are accepted as normal features of contemporary governance, particularly

in contexts where political consensus is limited. These features align closely with practice-

oriented accounts of diplomacy, which emphasise routines, informal coordination, and

tacit knowledge as central to the functioning of international cooperation (Pouliot &

Cornut, 2015).

Changes in the structure of contemporary diplomacy further reinforce the relevance of

pragmatic approaches. Hocking (2016) observes that diplomatic practice has become

increasingly network-based and polycentric, reflecting the diffusion of authority across

state and non-state actors and the proliferation of issue-specific policy arenas. In such

settings, diplomacy rarely unfolds through singular negotiating forums or comprehensive

treaties. Instead, it operates through overlapping channels that connect governments,

international organisations, and specialised agencies. Pragmatic diplomacy is well suited

to this environment because it does not depend on hierarchical institutional control or

normative convergence.

Importantly, pragmatic diplomacy should not be conflated with opportunism or policy

inconsistency. Although it avoids rigid doctrinal commitments, it remains strategically

purposeful. Its defining feature lies in the prioritisation of feasibility and risk mitigation

under conditions of uncertainty. In polycrisis environments, this often results in

cooperation that is limited in scope and framed in technical terms, thereby reducing

domestic political exposure while preserving the possibility of future adjustment.

From this perspective, pragmatic diplomacy occupies a middle ground between classical

realist and liberal institutionalist approaches. It does not reject cooperation in favour of

unilateral power projection, nor does it assume that durable cooperation requires deep

normative alignment or institutional integration. Instead, it treats cooperation as a

contingent and context-dependent practice shaped by structural constraints. This

orientation is particularly relevant for actors operating outside formal membership

frameworks, such as the UK in its post-Brexit relationship with the EU, where political

red lines limit the scope of institutional engagement but do not eliminate functional

interdependence.

Under conditions of polycrisis, pragmatic diplomacy thus represents not a temporary

deviation from established strategies, but a durable mode of adjustment. As overlapping

crises continue to interact across security, economic, and institutional domains,

diplomatic practices that emphasise flexibility, reversibility, and issue-specific

coordination are likely to remain central to the management of international relations.

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Analytical Implications for the Study of UK–EU Relations

The combined perspective of polycrisis and pragmatic diplomacy provides a coherent

analytical lens for understanding the United Kingdom’s reset diplomacy toward the EU.

Polycrisis generates shared pressures across security, economic, and institutional

domains that weaken the viability of ideologically rigid positions. In such environments,

diplomatic strategies premised on either sustained confrontation or comprehensive

reintegration tend to incur escalating political and material costs. Pragmatic diplomacy

offers an alternative logic by enabling cooperation to proceed within clearly recognised

constraints.

This framework helps explain both the timing and the form of the UK–EU reset. The

recalibration of relations did not emerge from a fundamental reassessment of Brexit as

a political project. Instead, it reflected a gradual adjustment to the cumulative pressures

generated by overlapping crises. Security uncertainty, economic volatility, and regulatory

interdependence interacted to narrow the range of feasible policy options, making

selective cooperation increasingly attractive even in the absence of political trust or

normative convergence.

Analytically, the emphasis on modular and issue-specific cooperation is particularly

significant. Rather than pursuing a single overarching agreement, the UK–EU reset has

unfolded through discrete initiatives that address concrete policy needs while avoiding

politically sensitive questions of institutional membership. This approach reduces the risk

that setbacks in one domain will undermine cooperation in others. It also allows both

parties to recalibrate engagement over time in response to changing conditions, a feature

that is especially valuable in polycrisis environments characterised by uncertainty and

rapid change.

The framework further highlights the importance of recognising political and institutional

constraints as constitutive elements of diplomacy rather than as obstacles to be

overcome. In the UK–EU case, domestic political red lines in the UK and legal-institutional

limits on the EU side shape not only what forms of cooperation are possible, but also how

cooperation is framed and justified. Treating these constraints analytically helps explain

why the reset has taken an incremental, technically oriented form rather than moving

toward deeper institutionalisation.

Finally, this perspective clarifies the distinction between cooperation and convergence.

The UK–EU reset demonstrates that functional cooperation can be sustained without

shared long-term integration goals or normative alignment. Cooperation emerges as a

contingent practice aimed at managing specific risks rather than as a pathway toward

systemic transformation. This insight is central to the broader argument of the article, as

it allows the analysis to move beyond debates over integration outcomes and toward a

more grounded understanding of how diplomacy operates under conditions of structural

constraint.

By establishing these analytical implications, this section provides a conceptual bridge

between the theoretical discussion of polycrisis and pragmatic diplomacy and the

empirical analysis of the UK–EU reset that follows. It sets the stage for examining how

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these dynamics have been translated into concrete diplomatic practices, while remaining

attentive to the limits imposed by post-Brexit political and institutional realities.

The UK–EU Reset under Polycrisis: Structural Pressures and Pragmatic

Diplomacy

Structural Pressures in a Polycrisis Environment

The recalibration of UK–EU relations has continued to unfold within a polycrisis

environment characterised by persistence rather than resolution. Since 2025,

overlapping security, economic, and institutional pressures have not stabilised into a new

equilibrium. Instead, they have evolved in ways that reinforce one another, further

constraining diplomatic choice. Within this context, the UK–EU reset has increasingly

been framed not as a discretionary policy initiative, but as a functional response to

sustained uncertainty.

From a geopolitical perspective, the European security landscape remains unsettled.

Although the war in Ukraine has entered a protracted phase, its implications for European

defence planning and strategic coordination have deepened rather than diminished. The

EU has continued to expand its role in defence-industrial coordination and sanctions

governance, while debates over burden-sharing and strategic autonomy have intensified

(European Council, 2025b). These developments underscore the extent to which

European security governance now operates across multiple institutional layers, including

NATO, EU frameworks, and partnerships with non-member states. For the UK, this has

increased the practical costs associated with sustained distance from EU-level

coordination, even as formal boundaries related to membership remain firmly in place.

Economic pressures have likewise persisted and accumulated. Post-Brexit trade frictions

continue to intersect with broader challenges related to supply-chain resilience, energy

security, and sluggish growth. Parliamentary briefings published since 2025 indicate that

non-tariff barriers and regulatory divergence have become structural features of UK–EU

economic relations rather than transitional effects (UK Parliament, 2025c; House of Lords

Library, 2026). Over time, the cumulative impact of these constraints has heightened

political sensitivity to the economic costs of limited cooperation, particularly in sectors

where regulatory divergence generates disproportionate adjustment burdens.

What distinguishes this phase of UK–EU relations is not the emergence of new crises, but

the interaction of existing ones. Security uncertainty, economic adjustment, and

institutional separation increasingly reinforce each other, narrowing the range of

politically viable strategies. Under such conditions, approaches premised on either

sustained confrontation or comprehensive reintegration become difficult to sustain. The

reset should therefore be understood less as a change in strategic ambition than as an

effort to manage exposure to systemic risk within a prolonged polycrisis environment.

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Security Recalibration and Cooperation beyond Membership

Security cooperation has remained central to the evolving UK–EU reset, particularly as

the limits of purely alliance-based frameworks have become more apparent. Although

NATO continues to function as the primary pillar of European collective defence, the

expansion of EU-level initiatives in defence-industrial coordination, procurement

cooperation, and military mobility has increased the functional relevance of EU

institutions for European security governance (European Commission, 2022). This

development does not displace NATO’s role, but it does complicate the institutional

landscape within which European security cooperation now operates.

By early 2026, this dynamic had translated into renewed discussions concerning UK

participation in selected EU defence-related mechanisms (Tidey & Jones, 2026). Public

statements and media reporting suggested that the UK government was reassessing its

position on engagement with EU initiatives linked to joint procurement and industrial

capacity-building. These discussions were framed explicitly in functional terms. Rather

than signalling a move toward institutional reintegration, they reflected shared concerns

regarding capability gaps, production constraints, and the sustainability of defence

support in a prolonged security crisis.

This recalibration points to a layered approach to security cooperation. The UK has

continued to emphasise the primacy of NATO and the transatlantic relationship, while

increasingly acknowledging that effective European security governance depends on

coordination across multiple institutional venues (European Council, 2025b). Cooperation

beyond formal membership thus emerges as a strategic compromise. It allows the UK to

retain political autonomy while reducing the operational costs associated with exclusion

from EU-led coordination frameworks. Under conditions of persistent security

uncertainty, this form of pragmatic engagement becomes less an exception than a

practical necessity.

Economic and Regulatory Adjustment after Brexit

Economic and regulatory adjustment constitutes a second core dimension of the UK–EU

reset. While the Trade and Cooperation Agreement continues to provide the baseline

framework for bilateral economic relations, its limitations have become increasingly

visible as regulatory divergence intersects with broader shifts in industrial and climate

policy. EU initiatives related to economic security and climate governance have generated

external pressures on UK firms integrated into European value chains, particularly in

sectors characterised by tight regulatory coupling (European Commission, 2023).

By early 2026, sector-specific negotiations had moved from abstract debate toward

exploratory discussions focused on technical and transitional arrangements. In the agri-

food sector, renewed attention to sanitary and phytosanitary measures reflected growing

concern over supply disruption, administrative burden, and competitiveness (UK

Parliament, 2025d). Similarly, discussions surrounding emissions trading coordination

were driven less by normative alignment than by awareness that regulatory divergence

could impose asymmetric costs in an already strained economic environment.

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These developments highlight the evolving logic of economic cooperation under the reset.

Regulatory coordination is increasingly framed as a tool for risk mitigation rather than

convergence. By pursuing targeted adjustments in areas where divergence generates

disproportionate costs, the UK seeks to stabilise economic interaction with the EU while

maintaining the political narrative of post-Brexit autonomy. This pattern is consistent

with the broader logic of pragmatic diplomacy under polycrisis, where cooperation is

justified by functional necessity and bounded by political constraint.

Political and Institutional Constraints of the Reset

Despite growing incentives for cooperation, the scope and form of the UK–EU reset

remain shaped by enduring political and institutional constraints on both sides. These

constraints help explain why the reset has taken an incremental and selective form rather

than evolving into a comprehensive framework for renewed integration.

In the UK, Brexit continues to carry significant political salience. Successive governments

have reiterated commitments to core Brexit red lines, including the rejection of EU single

market membership, the customs union, and free movement of persons. These

constraints limit the political feasibility of deep or highly visible forms of integration and

steer policy toward technocratic, sector-specific arrangements that attract less public

scrutiny (House of Lords Library, 2026). As a result, the reset is framed in terms of

normalisation and improvement rather than reversal.

On the EU side, institutional constraints are equally consequential. The legal architecture

of the EU and concerns about precedent-setting restrict the depth of cooperation that

can be extended to third countries without corresponding obligations (Fabbrini, 2020).

Internal divergences among member states regarding the strategic value of closer

engagement with the UK further complicate efforts to institutionalise cooperation beyond

narrowly defined areas.

Taken together, these constraints reinforce a modular approach to the reset. Rather than

pursuing a single overarching agreement, both parties have favoured incremental

progress through discrete initiatives and structured dialogues. This approach allows

cooperation to advance where mutual benefits are clear while containing political and

legal risks. In this sense, the reset reflects not a transitional stage toward reintegration,

but a relatively stable equilibrium shaped by the enduring legacies of Brexit and the

pressures of polycrisis.

Implications for Peace and Security on the Korean Peninsula

Polycrisis on the Korean Peninsula: Interlocking Security and

Geoeconomic Pressures

The Korean Peninsula constitutes a paradigmatic case of polycrisis in which security,

geoeconomic, and institutional pressures interact in ways that significantly constrain

diplomatic choice. Unlike episodic crises that can be addressed through discrete policy

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interventions, the peninsula is shaped by the persistence of unresolved confrontation,

the accumulation of risk across domains, and the absence of stable mechanisms for crisis

exit. These conditions generate a structural environment in which policy flexibility is

limited and the costs of miscalculation are particularly high.

At the core of this polycrisis lies the unresolved legacy of the Korean War and the

continued development of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)’s nuclear

and missile capabilities. The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly reported

that it remains unable to conduct verification activities in the DPRK, while continuing to

monitor relevant facilities through open-source and satellite-based information (IAEA,

2024). This lack of verification does not merely represent a technical limitation. It

constitutes a structural source of uncertainty that complicates risk assessment and

undermines the predictability required for sustained crisis management.

Sanctions governance forms a second, closely related layer of polycrisis. While United

Nations Security Council sanctions formally remain in place, their enforcement and

monitoring have become increasingly contested. Resolution 2680 (2023) extended the

mandate of the Panel of Experts only on a temporary basis, and the Panel’s final report

documented persistent evasion practices and growing obstacles to coordinated

enforcement (United Nations Security Council, 2024). The subsequent termination of the

Panel’s mandate has introduced an additional element of institutional fragmentation,

weakening shared situational awareness and complicating multilateral coordination.

A third dimension of polycrisis emerges from the growing salience of geoeconomic

competition. Global debates on economic security, supply-chain resilience, and

technological controls increasingly intersect with traditional security concerns. The World

Economic Forum (2026) identifies geoeconomic confrontation and the weaponisation of

economic interdependence as among the most significant short-term global risks. For the

Korean Peninsula, these dynamics are particularly consequential. South Korea’s security

remains anchored in alliance commitments, while its economic model is deeply embedded

in global value chains exposed to strategic trade controls and technological decoupling.

What distinguishes the peninsula’s polycrisis is not the presence of multiple challenges

per se, but the way in which these pressures reinforce one another. Nuclear risk

intensifies sanctions politics, sanctions governance intersects with great-power rivalry,

and geoeconomic competition feeds back into security calculations. Under such

conditions, diplomatic strategies premised on comprehensive settlement or linear

progress become difficult to sustain. The polycrisis of the Korean Peninsula should

therefore be understood not as a temporary convergence of challenges, but as a

structural condition that narrows the space for diplomatic manoeuvre and elevates the

importance of risk management (World Bank, 2024).

Analytical Lessons from Pragmatic Diplomacy under Polycrisis

The UK–EU reset examined in Chapter 3 does not offer a transferable institutional model

for the Korean Peninsula. Its analytical relevance lies instead in the mechanisms through

which diplomatic cooperation has been recalibrated under conditions of structural

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constraint. These mechanisms provide insight into how diplomacy functions in

environments where comprehensive settlements are politically and institutionally

unattainable.

A first analytical lesson concerns the logic of selective cooperation. Under polycrisis

conditions, attempts to pursue all-encompassing agreements tend to raise the political

threshold for engagement to a level that is difficult to sustain. The UK–EU reset illustrates

how cooperation can be organised around discrete functional domains without reopening

foundational disputes. Analytically applied to the Korean Peninsula, this suggests that

limited forms of engagement may remain possible even when progress on core security

issues is blocked, not because political relations have improved, but because functional

coordination serves to manage specific risks.

A second lesson relates to incrementalism and modularity. Rather than constructing a

single overarching framework, the reset has proceeded through layered and reversible

arrangements that contain political exposure. This feature is particularly relevant in

contexts characterised by domestic political volatility and security uncertainty.

Incremental mechanisms allow interaction to continue without requiring irreversible

commitments or assumptions of linear progress.

A third lesson concerns the treatment of constraints as constitutive elements of

diplomacy. In the UK–EU case, domestic political red lines and institutional limits are not

framed as temporary obstacles to be overcome, but as parameters within which

cooperation is designed and justified. Strategic documents produced by the Republic of

Korea similarly acknowledge that national security policy operates at the intersection of

military threats, economic security, and great-power competition (Ministry of Foreign

Affairs, Republic of Korea, 2022). Recognising these constraints analytically reduces the

risk of overestimating the feasibility of ambitious diplomatic initiatives in structurally

constrained environments.

Finally, pragmatic diplomacy under polycrisis underscores the distinction between

cooperation and convergence. The UK–EU reset demonstrates that functional cooperation

does not require institutional convergence or normative alignment. Cooperation emerges

as a contingent practice aimed at managing specific risks rather than as a pathway

toward political reconciliation or systemic transformation. For the Korean Peninsula,

where institutional integration analogous to the European experience is neither feasible

nor analytically appropriate, this distinction is particularly significant.

Taken together, these analytical lessons do not point toward solutions or policy

prescriptions. Instead, they clarify how diplomacy adapts when its scope is narrowed by

persistent uncertainty and structural constraint. In this sense, pragmatic diplomacy

under polycrisis provides an interpretive framework for understanding diplomatic practice

in high-risk environments rather than a blueprint for conflict resolution.

Multi-Vector Cooperation and Risk Management on the Korean Peninsula

If the Korean Peninsula is understood as a setting shaped by polycrisis, diplomatic

engagement oriented toward a single institutional or strategic track is unlikely to provide

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a stable basis for managing risk. An analytically more appropriate framing is multi-vector

cooperation, understood here not as a prescriptive strategy, but as a descriptive concept

capturing the plurality of channels through which interaction is organised under

conditions of structural constraint.

In the international relations literature, multi-vector foreign policy has been used to

describe how states navigate competitive environments by cultivating pragmatic relations

with multiple power centres rather than aligning exclusively with a single actor. Research

on secondary and middle powers emphasises that such an approach is not driven by

ideological neutrality, but by efforts to preserve autonomy and manage exposure to

external risks in environments where dependence on any single partner may generate

vulnerability (Vanderhill et al., 2020). This conceptualisation provides a useful analytical

lens for examining diplomatic practice on the Korean Peninsula, where structural

constraints limit the feasibility of singular or linear approaches to engagement.

Empirically, elements of multi-vector engagement are already visible in the peninsula’s

diplomatic landscape. South Korea’s security posture remains anchored in alliance-based

deterrence, while its diplomatic practice extends across multilateral institutions, regional

partnerships, and issue-specific forms of coordination. This plurality reflects a context in

which no single framework is capable of addressing the full range of security, economic,

and geopolitical pressures confronting the peninsula.

From an analytical perspective, the significance of multi-vector cooperation lies in its

relationship to risk management across domains. Geoeconomic tensions associated with

supply-chain restructuring, technological controls, and industrial policy increasingly

interact with traditional security concerns. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation

and Development has noted that economic security risks linked to global value chains

and strategic technologies now directly shape national security calculations, particularly

for economies deeply embedded in international production networks (OECD, 2024).

Under such conditions, disruptions originating in one domain can rapidly spill over into

others.

In this context, dispersing diplomatic engagement across multiple vectors may reduce

the likelihood that shocks cascade uncontrollably across policy areas. Security escalation

can disrupt economic and diplomatic channels that contribute to broader stability, while

unmanaged geoeconomic confrontation may exacerbate security dilemmas. Multi-vector

engagement, understood analytically, draws attention to how diplomatic practice can

mitigate such cross-domain spillovers without presupposing convergence or political

reconciliation.

Domestic political dynamics constitute an additional dimension of risk under polycrisis.

Survey research conducted by the Korea Institute for National Unification indicates that

public attitudes toward inter-Korean relations and unification have become increasingly

heterogeneous and contingent (Korea Institute for National Unification, 2025). This

variability complicates the sustainability of diplomatic initiatives that rely on singular

narratives or narrowly defined policy tracks. Viewed analytically, multi-vector

engagement highlights how diplomatic interaction can persist despite fluctuations in

domestic preferences.

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Importantly, multi-vector cooperation does not imply strategic ambiguity, nor does it

entail the dilution of existing security commitments. It also does not presuppose progress

toward conflict resolution. Its analytical value lies in drawing attention to how diplomacy

under polycrisis prioritises risk containment, adaptability, and systemic resilience over

linear advancement toward settlement. In this sense, multi-vector cooperation captures

a mode of diplomatic practice oriented toward stabilising interaction in an environment

where uncertainty is not episodic, but enduring.

Conclusion

This article set out to examine the United Kingdom’s reset diplomacy toward the

European Union as a case of pragmatic cooperation under conditions of polycrisis, and to

explore its analytical implications for peace and security on the Korean Peninsula. Rather

than interpreting the reset as a transitional step toward reintegration or as a symbolic

political shift, the analysis conceptualised it as a mode of diplomacy shaped by enduring

structural constraints and overlapping sources of uncertainty.

Drawing on the concept of polycrisis, the article argued that contemporary international

politics is increasingly characterised by the interaction of multiple crises across security,

economic, and institutional domains. In such environments, diplomatic strategies

premised on comprehensive settlement, institutional convergence, or linear progress

become difficult to sustain. Instead, diplomacy tends to prioritise adaptability, risk

management, and functionally bounded forms of cooperation. Chapter 2 established this

analytical framework by linking polycrisis to pragmatic diplomacy as a mode of

adjustment rather than an exception to established practice.

Against this backdrop, Chapter 3 analysed the UK–EU reset as an empirical illustration of

how diplomacy operates under constraint. The reset has been driven not by normative

convergence or a return to pre-Brexit integration, but by cumulative pressures associated

with security uncertainty, geoeconomic competition, and regulatory interdependence.

Cooperation has therefore proceeded in selective and incremental ways, bounded by

persistent political and institutional limits on both sides. Rather than resolving underlying

disputes, the reset has stabilised interaction by enabling limited coordination in specific

domains while preserving domestic political constraints.

Chapter 4 extended this analytical lens to the Korean Peninsula, which constitutes a

particularly acute case of polycrisis. The analysis demonstrated that unresolved military

confrontation, contested sanctions governance, and intensifying geoeconomic pressures

interact to narrow diplomatic choice and elevate the costs of rigidity. Rather than offering

policy prescriptions, the discussion identified analytical lessons regarding how diplomacy

functions when comprehensive solutions are structurally out of reach. In such settings,

diplomatic practice is more plausibly oriented toward managing risk, containing cross-

domain spillovers, and sustaining engagement through multiple and issue-specific

channels.

Taken together, the findings of this article suggest that diplomacy in the era of polycrisis

is increasingly judged not by its capacity to deliver definitive outcomes, but by its ability

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to reduce systemic risk and stabilise interaction under conditions of persistent

uncertainty. The UK–EU reset illustrates one such mode of pragmatic adjustment. Its

relevance for the Korean Peninsula lies not in what it achieves, but in how it operates

under constraint. By focusing on the forms and logics of diplomatic practice rather than

on institutional end-states, this article contributes to a broader understanding of how

peace and security may be pursued when resolution itself remains a long-term horizon

rather than an immediate possibility.

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VOL. 17 Nº.1, TD 1

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Context: Security, Culture, and Transnational Perspectives

June 2026

CULTURAL IBERISM AND ITS APPLICABILITY TO THE KOREAN PENINSULA

JIEUN KIM

cozo223@gmail.com

Lecturer at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (Seoul, Republic of Korea). She received her

doctoral degree from the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in comparative literature. She

translated Fernando Pessoa and Florbela Espanca into korean.

Abstract

Fernando Pessoa envisioned “Iberismo” (or Iberism) not as a project of political federation or

economic union, but as a form of cultural cooperation rooted in shared historical and spiritual

traits. For Pessoa, one of the defining characteristics of Iberia is its “non-Latinity” — a

disposition that distinguishes it from Latin Europe by embracing Arab and Islamic influences

and fostering openness toward the Other. This openness is also evident in Portugal’s historical

role as a mediator and exchange hub among Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe through

the Atlantic Ocean, reflected in the Portuguese people's “plasticity” and “cosmopolitanism.”

This study has sought to explore the applicability of Iberism as an analytical framework for

models of unification on the Korean Peninsula. While political unification remains the

normative ideal pursued by both Koreas, the prolonged reality of division has led to a growing

proportion of South Korean citizens adopting increasingly pessimistic views toward political

integration. Economic federation, in turn, represents an even more challenging domain of

cooperation, given the stark structural contrasts between the two systems—capitalism and

socialism, open free trade and a closed, state-led industrial model. Moreover, the economic

gap between North and South Korea continues to widen, further constraining the feasibility of

economic integration. With respect to cultural cooperation, which constitutes the primary

focus of this study, existing forms of exchange have largely been temporary and event-driven

in nature. In response, this article proposes more sustained collaboration in the fields of

cultural heritage research and transmission, areas that can make substantive contributions to

a shared understanding of Korean identity. Finally, affective forms of integration, as captured

by the notion of -philia—denoting mutual affection toward the other—must be regarded as

the least attainable form of integration in the contemporary Korean context, where enduring

ideological conflict continues to foreclose the possibility of socially legitimate cross-border

affinity.

Keywords

Iberism, Unification, Korea Peninsula, Iberia Peninsula, Cultural cooperation.

Resumo

Fernando Pessoa concebia o «Iberismo» (ou Iberismo) não como um projeto de federação

política ou de união económica, mas como uma forma de cooperação cultural enraizada em

traços históricos e espirituais comuns. Para Pessoa, uma das características definidoras da

Península Ibérica é a sua «não-latinidade» — uma disposição que a distingue da Europa latina

ao abraçar influências árabes e islâmicas e ao promover a abertura para com o Outro. Esta

abertura é também evidente no papel histórico de Portugal como mediador e centro de

intercâmbio entre África, as Américas, a Ásia e a Europa através do Oceano Atlântico, refletido

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Cultural Iberism and its Applicability to the Korean Peninsula

Jieun Kim

na «plasticidade» e no «cosmopolitismo» do povo português. Este estudo procurou explorar

a aplicabilidade do Iberismo como quadro analítico para modelos de unificação na Península

Coreana. Embora a unificação política continue a ser o ideal normativo perseguido por ambas

as Coreias, a realidade prolongada da divisão levou a que uma proporção crescente de

cidadãos sul-coreanos adotasse visões cada vez mais pessimistas em relação à integração

política. A federação económica, por sua vez, representa um domínio de cooperação ainda

mais desafiante, dados os contrastes estruturais marcantes entre os dois sistemas —

capitalismo e socialismo, comércio livre aberto e um modelo industrial fechado e liderado pelo

Estado. Além disso, o fosso económico entre a Coreia do Norte e a Coreia do Sul continua a

alargar-se, limitando ainda mais a viabilidade da integração económica. No que diz respeito

à cooperação cultural, que constitui o foco principal deste estudo, as formas existentes de

intercâmbio têm sido, em grande parte, de natureza temporária e motivadas por eventos

pontuais. Em resposta, este artigo propõe uma colaboração mais sustentada nos campos da

investigação e transmissão do património cultural, áreas que podem dar contributos

substanciais para uma compreensão partilhada da identidade coreana. Por fim, as formas

afetivas de integração, tal como captadas pela noção de -filia — que denota afeto mútuo pelo

outro —, devem ser consideradas como a forma menos alcançável de integração no contexto

coreano contemporâneo, onde o conflito ideológico duradouro continua a excluir a

possibilidade de uma afinidade transfronteiriça socialmente legítima.

Palavras-chave

Iberismo, Unificação, Península da Coreia, Península Ibérica, Cooperação cultural.

How to cite this article

Kim, Jieun (2026). Cultural Iberism and its Applicability to the Korean Peninsula. Janus.net, e-

journal of international relations VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1 – Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula

in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and Transnational Perspectives, June 2026, pp. 76-91. DOI

https://doi.org/10.26619/1647-7251.DT0426.5

Article submitted on December 31, 2025 and accepted for publication on February 12,

2026.

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Cultural Iberism and its Applicability to the Korean Peninsula

Jieun Kim

CULTURAL IBERISM AND ITS APPLICABILITY TO THE KOREAN

PENINSULA

JIEUN KIM

Introduction

Iberismo, or Iberism, which advocates for the union or integration of the two nation-

states located on the Iberian Peninsula—Spain and Portugal—can be historically traced

back to the medieval Reconquista. During this period, the shared struggle against

Moorish rule, conducted under a Catholic ethos aimed at territorial reclamation,

contributed to the consolidation of a common Catholic identity across the peninsula. In

the nineteenth century, the unification movements in Italy and Germany once again

influenced political and intellectual currents within the Iberian Peninsula. Toward the late

nineteenth century, the strategic significance of cooperation between Spain and Portugal

became evident during the guerrilla warfare waged jointly to resist Napoleon’s invasion

of the peninsula.

Entering the twentieth century, Iberism was increasingly articulated within cultural and

intellectual spheres. Modernist writers and artists such as Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935)

and Almada Negreiros (1893-1970) promoted Iberist ideas by emphasizing cultural

exchange, shared historical consciousness, and the potential for a broader Iberian unity.

Their contributions reframed Iberism less as a purely political project and more as a

cultural and civilizational one.

Analytically, Iberism is commonly divided into three interrelated dimensions: political

Iberism, economic Iberism, and cultural Iberism. Political Iberism encompasses a wide

spectrum of proposals, ranging from the complete assimilation of the two nations to

various forms of federal unification that preserve the sovereignty of each state. Certain

strands of political Iberism adopt a mergerist or absorptionist perspective. A notable

example is Spanish Secretary of State Pío Gullón’s La Fusión Ibérica (1861), which

proposed the incorporation of Portugal as a province of Spain. Such positions, however,

have historically provoked strong resistance from the Portuguese perspective and

highlight the asymmetrical power relations embedded within some Iberist discourses.

Economic Iberism is most clearly exemplified by proposals for an Iberian customs union,

such as the Iberian Zollverein advocated by the Spanish diplomat Sinibaldo de Mas. In

the contemporary context, Spain and Portugal’s accession to the European Economic

Community (EEC)—the precursor to the European Union—has institutionalized forms of

economic cooperation, including customs integration, within a broader European

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Jieun Kim

framework. This development has effectively embedded Iberian economic collaboration

within supranational structures rather than bilateral unification projects.

Cultural Iberism refers to initiatives and discourses that emphasize cultural exchange,

mutual recognition, and shared heritage between Spain and Portugal. While culture

cannot be analytically separated from political and economic contexts, cultural Iberism

is often distinguished as a separate category because it is the preferred framework of

those who reject political unification while nonetheless advocating for intensified cultural

interaction as beneficial to the overall development of the Iberian Peninsula (Isasi 72).

As Isasi notes, cultural Iberism remains organically linked to political and economic forms

of Iberism, despite claims to its autonomy (Isasi 68).

In addition to these categories, Isasi proposes a further conceptual distinction: lusophilia

and hispanophilia, referring to individuals who express sustained admiration for and

intellectual engagement with the culture of the neighboring nation (Isasi 68). Broadly

construed, this orientation may also be understood as a form of cultural Iberism, insofar

as it embodies affective and cultural investment in transnational Iberian exchange.

Spanish novelists such as Juan Valera (1824-1905) and Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936)

are frequently cited as representative lusophiles. Valera, in particular, founded La Revista

Peninsular in 1856 and contributed extensively to discussions of the cultural and

intellectual traditions of both Spain and Portugal, thereby fostering a trans-Iberian

cultural dialogue.

Thus, from the past to the present, Iberism has evolved and transformed in various

forms. Among these, cultural Iberism, which particularly emphasizes cultural exchange

and cooperation, has contributed to differentiating and redefining the cultural identities

of the two Iberian nations from other European countries. This paper examines the basis

for Fernando Pessoa's advocacy of cultural Iberism and its key characteristics, exploring

the possibility of applying it to the Korean Peninsula. Of course, it is fair to say that the

Iberian Peninsula and the Korean Peninsula share almost no commonalities beyond their

geographical status as peninsulas. While the two nations of the Iberian Peninsula have

long maintained distinct national identities, the Korean Peninsula is a single nation

divided only since 1945 through the Korean War. Although they share an identity based

on a common history and ethnicity, over 80 years of division have led to a persistent lack

of exchange. Consequently, differences now outweigh similarities in many areas,

including political systems, economic systems, and culture. Against this backdrop, this

study seeks to explore how cultural Iberism might influence cultural exchange on the

Korean Peninsula.

Iberism: Cultural Exchange and Identity Exploration

Iberia between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic

Fernando Pessoa defines the Iberian Peninsula as “the Iberian spirit is a fusion of the

Mediterranean spirit with the Atlantic spirit” (Pessoa 1980:12). Here, the Mediterranean

and the Atlantic, its defining characteristics, can be seen as representing European

tradition and cosmopolitan spirit, respectively. If the Mediterranean Sea, which served

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Jieun Kim

as the conduit for the Roman Empire into the Iberian Peninsula, represents the

peninsula's past—transmitting civilizations like Catholicism and Latin—then the Atlantic

Ocean can be seen as the future space: a springboard toward new continents and a

symbol of adventure into the unknown world. Orlando Ribeiro also highlights Portugal's

unique geographical position, bordered by both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, as

crucial to understanding the nation in his work Portugal, o Mediterrâneo e o Atlântico

(2011). According to Ribeiro, the Mediterranean is a space enabling coexistence between

refined Europe and vast Africa, extending the spirit of that coexistence across all of

Europe, while the Atlantic embodies the meaning of an open path leading anywhere in

the world (Ribeiro 143).

The most crucial requirement of Iberism, as emphasized by Pessoa, is precisely the

Atlantic. In the poem “Atlantimo,” he writes:

Iberian Hegemony.

The Atlantic conception of life.

Spiritual imperialism

For Pessoa, the Atlantic is more than a mere geographical feature. As mentioned earlier,

if the Mediterranean represents the European tradition linked to Greco-Roman culture,

the Atlantic is the conduit where the self and the other, Europe and non-Europe, meet.

As Boaventura explains, Portugal has served as a conduit for encountering diverse

nations across the globe, differing in race and culture, and bringing their cultures to

Europe. Portugal perceived itself as possessing an “open border(fronteira aberta)”(59)

and viewed its society as deeply imbued with ‘internationalism’ and ‘exoticism’

(Boaventura, 2013: 59). As Jieun Kim also highlighted the symbol of the Atlantic derived

from this is largely connected to three characteristics of Portugal and the Iberian

Peninsula: “non-Latinity,” “plasticity,” and “cosmopolitanism” (Kim 2025).

Iberity and non-Latinity

First, “non-Latinity” refers to the Islamic-receptive culture of the Iberian Peninsula. Both

Portugal and Spain are the only nations on the European continent to have embraced

Arab culture. Pessoa defined Iberity(Iberidade) as “Ibero-Roman-Arabic” (Pessoa

1980:16), emphasizing the ‘Arabic’ element. Regions of Portugal and Spain, subjected to

centuries of Arab Moorish rule, were profoundly influenced by Arab culture in architectural

styles, linguistic elements, and emotional sensibilities. This perspective is reflected in the

passage from “Atlanticism”: “We are against Rome, because Rome came to destroy

within paganism the lucid vision of life”

(Pessoa 1979:76).

Hegemonia Ibérica/ A concepção atlântica da vida/ O imperialismo espiritual. (Pessoa, 1979, p. 76).

Somos contra Roma, porque Roma veio destruir no paganismo a visão lúcida da vida. (Pessoa, 1979:76)

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Jieun Kim

Particularly in the essay “The Non-Latin Nature of Iberia” (A Não-Latinidade da Ibéria),

he refutes the common designation of Iberia as part of the ‘Latin cultural sphere’. He

argues that while it did derive from the Roman Empire, Iberia possesses its own distinct

culture, differentiated from that of Italy and France. Pessoa questions why Portugal and

Spain are called Latin nations based on 1) etymological reasons (their linguistic origins

in Latin) and 2) geographical reasons (their Mediterranean location), while countries like

France, Romania, Italy, Greece, and Turkey are not. Instead, Pessoa proposes a new

classification for European nations, arguing that the Latin nations inheriting Roman

civilization are France and Italy. According to his classification, Europe can be broadly

divided into Slavic, Germanic, Latin (Italy, France), Oriental (Greece, Turkey, Russia,

Persia, the Balkans), and Iberian (Spain, Portugal). Through this classification, Pessoa

seeks to avoid confining the Iberian Peninsula solely to the ‘Latin’ label, which would limit

it to Catholicism and the Latin cultural sphere. His argument can be interpreted in two

ways: first, as an exploration of the distinctive identity shared uniquely by the Iberian

Peninsula. Indeed, the influence of Islamic-receptive culture remains evident in

architectural styles and other aspects to this day.

The second reason can be seen as a reaction against and a check on the so-called Latin

cultural sphere countries like France and Italy, which held cultural hegemony at the time.

Indeed, in his poem “Atlanticism,” Pessoa referred to ‘Rome’ and ‘Paris’ as “enemies.”

We are against Rome, because Rome came to destroy the lucid vision of life

in paganism. We are against England, because England came to destroy,

[...]. We are against France, because France came, with its democratism and

its plebeian liberalism, to destroy the remnants of paganism that existed

among us

The term ‘Latin’ is also particularly relevant to the Latin American region. It is widely

acknowledged that the common designation of Latin America as ‘Latin America’ stems

from the influence of the 19th-century French political scientist Michel Chevalier. When

Chevalier used the term ‘Latin America,’ he considered France part of the ‘Latin’ cultural

sphere and created it to highlight similarities between ‘Latin America’ and France.

(Mignolo 2005:77-80) In other words, he used the term ‘Latin America’ to legitimize

France's influence and intervention within the region. Pessoa, seemingly in opposition,

emphasizes the distinctions between the Iberian Peninsula and ‘Latinness’. He argues

that Latin America is a region where ‘Iberianness’ is stronger than ‘Latinness’, seeking to

justify cultural imperialism there. His aim was to expand the sphere of influence of Iberian

culture across this vast region and use it as a springboard to build a more powerful Iberia.

(1) the spiritual domination of Central and South America, and thus cultural

imperialism in the New World, (2) the definitive conquest of North African

Somos contra Roma, porque Roma veio destruir no paganismo a visão lúcida da vida. Somos contra Inglaterra,

porque Inglaterra veio destruir, [...]. Somos contra França, porque a França veio, com o seu democratismo e

o seu liberalismo plebeu, destruir os restos de paganismo que havia entre nós. (Pessoa 1979:76)

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Jieun Kim

territories, where our kinsmen, the Arab and Berber races, reside [...]; (3)

the military destruction of France (and Italy)

Meanwhile, plasticity and cosmopolitanism are also concepts linked to non-Latinness. As

Boaventura noted earlier, Portugal, with its ‘open borders,’ possesses plasticity between

the familiar and the foreign, tradition and change, Europe and other cultures, Christianity

and other religions. (Boaventura 2013:64) Pessoa also views Iberia's characteristic as a

society where culture has developed by embracing polytheistic cultures and coexisting

with others.

Thus, in the process of understanding the Iberian Peninsula's cultural characteristics that

differentiate it from other European nations, we see Iberian identity being newly defined.

Cultural Iberianism thus contributes to conceptualizing and rethinking the identity of the

Iberian Peninsula. This aspect is also applicable to the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

For cultural exchange between South and North Korea, it is necessary to first identify the

cultural commonalities between the two Koreas. In this process, one is led to reconsider

the unique characteristics of the Korean Peninsula that differentiate it from other nations

and reveal its distinct differences.

Possibility of Adaptation in Korean Peninsula

Four types of unification model

As explained earlier, applying Iberian nationalism from the Iberian Peninsula to the

Korean Peninsula is unrealistic in many respects. First, the two nations on the Iberian

Peninsula have maintained distinct national identities since Portugal's founding in 1139.

In contrast, Korea was a unified dynastic state from Unified Silla (676-935) through the

Korea Dynasty (918-1392) to the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), only to become divided

in 1948 when the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

established separate governments. The Korean Peninsula is currently in a state of

armistice, and the Constitution of the Republic of Korea defines North Korea as part of

its territory.

This represents a significant difference in perspective: whether it is a

federation of separate nations or the reunification of a formerly unified country.

Nevertheless, applying cultural Iberism to various unification policies for the Korean

Peninsula could contribute to establishing and advancing realistic and effective unification

strategies based on the cultural commonalities and similarities inherent to the peninsula.

Just as Iberism is classified into four types, the unification models for the Korean

Peninsula can also be categorized into four types. We will examine the policies for each,

their respective meanings, and their effectiveness. Classifying the Korean Peninsula

unification models according to the four types of Iberism yields: political unification,

economic unification, cultural unification, and affection for the counterpart (pro-

(1) o domínio espiritual das Américas do centro e do sul, e assim o imperialismo de cultura no Novo Mundo,

(2) a conquista definitiva dos territórios do Norte de África, onde vi vem os homens nossos parentes, as raças

árabes, berberes, [...]; (3) a destruição militar da França (e da Itália) (Pessoa, 1980:13).

“The territory of the Republic of Korea shall consist of the Korean Peninsula and its adjacent islands.” (Article

3 of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea).

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North/pro-South). First, political unification is fundamentally what the South Korean

government aims for. South Korea has maintained a dedicated Ministry of Unification

within its executive branch since 1969, demonstrating the national-level oversight and

management of the task of ‘unification’. In every presidential election, candidates

invariably present unification-related policies toward North Korea alongside economic,

livelihood, and welfare policies. This underscores how crucial political integration is as a

task for South Korea.

South Korea's unification policy has shifted direction slightly with each change of

government. During the First Republic, immediately following division, North Korea was

not recognized, and the government advocated for ‘absorption unification’ and

‘unification by force’. However, by the Third and Fourth Republics, North Korea began to

be recognized and viewed as an entity for peace and coexistence. The 1972 ‘July 4 North-

South Joint Statement’ agreed upon during this period established the three major

unification principles of independence, peace, and national unity. However, in reality, it

was also a period of confrontation between North and South Korea under authoritarian

regimes. Entering the Sixth Republic, discussions on implementing concrete unification

policies began through the 1991 “Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-Aggression,

Exchange, and Cooperation between the South and the North (Inter-Korean Basic

Agreement).”(National Archives of Korea, 2018) In 1994, the Kim Young-sam

administration announced the ‘Plan for Reunification Based on a Community of the Korean

Nation’. This remains the official reunification roadmap to this day. It proposes three

stages: First, through reconciliation and cooperation, restore national homogeneity.

Second, establish a North-South Union, creating a dialogue mechanism via a summit

meeting body between the two Koreas. The final stage involves completing a unified

nation, enacting a unified constitution, and establishing a single-state, single-

government system through general elections.(Ministry of Unification, n.d.) Above all, it

emphasizes peace, prioritizing unification achieved through autonomous and democratic

consultation rather than war or force. In 2000, the Kim Dae-jung administration realized

the first inter-Korean summit, pledging peaceful coexistence and exchange through the

‘June 15 Joint Declaration’. The Kim Dae-jung administration is also credited with

introducing a new paradigm in inter-Korean relations by implementing its North Korea

policy, known as the Sunshine Policy. Since then, inter-Korean summits have been held

a total of three times. The second summit took place under the Roh Moo-hyun

administration in 2007, and the third under the Moon Jae-in administration in 2018.

Meanwhile, North Korea advocates a federal unification plan based on the three

unification principles of self-reliance, peace, and national unity outlined in the July 4

North-South Joint Statement. However, South Korea's analysis indicates that North Korea

internally still characterizes inter-Korean relations as hostile, maintaining an adversarial

view of unification.(North Korea Information Portal, 2024)

After 80 years of division, the reality is that many South Koreans today hold negative

perceptions of unification. According to the 2024 ‘Unification Awareness Survey’ statistics

from Seoul National University's Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, negative

perceptions toward unification are increasingly on the rise. Notably, among those in their

20s, only 22.4% responded that ‘unification is necessary,’ while 47.4% answered that it

is 'not necessary.' Similarly, among those in their 30s, 23.9% responded that unification

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is necessary, while a significantly higher 45.0% responded that it is not necessary.

(Institute for Peace and Unification Studies 9)

Limitations and Possibilities of Economic Union

With regard to the second category—economic unification—the Iberian case and the

Korean Peninsula present markedly different structural conditions. While Spain and

Portugal have sustained economic cooperation within the institutional framework of the

European Union, including participation in a customs union and, for Spain and Portugal

alike, the adoption of a common currency, the establishment of comparable economic

arrangements between North and South Korea remains highly constrained. In the Korean

context, the formation of institutions such as a customs union is rendered nearly

impossible by the fundamentally divergent economic systems of the two states.

South Korea operates under a capitalist economic system characterized by a private-

sector-led market economy, where private property ownership is legally guaranteed and

resource allocation is largely mediated through market mechanisms. In contrast, North

Korea adheres to a state-led socialist planned economy in which private property

ownership is prohibited, all productive assets are owned by the state, and economic

resources are allocated administratively by central authorities. These internal structural

differences are further reinforced by opposing external economic orientations. South

Korea actively pursues trade liberalization and integration into the global economy,

whereas North Korea maintains a largely closed economic structure, marked by limited

engagement with international trade and foreign capital.

Perhaps most salient is the magnitude of the economic disparity between the two Koreas.

As of recent estimates, South Korea’s gross national income per capita stands at

approximately 47.25 million won, while that of North Korea is estimated at 1.59 million

won, reflecting an income gap of nearly thirtyfold.(KBS, 2024) South Korea’s

contemporary economic position is the result of rapid industrialization and export-

oriented development policies implemented in the aftermath of colonial exploitation and

the devastation of the Korean War. Policies facilitated what has been widely described as

the “Miracle on the Han River,” transforming South Korea from one of the world’s poorest

countries into a high-income industrialized economy.

By contrast, North Korea persisted in a rigid socialist economic model and maintained a

closed stance toward international exchange even as other socialist and post-socialist

states initiated economic reforms and integration into the global economy from the 1980s

onward. This path dependency has resulted in chronic economic stagnation and

increasing marginalization within the global economic order. Consequently, the structural

asymmetries between the two Koreas far exceed those observed between Spain and

Portugal prior to their integration into European economic institutions.

A comparison of key economic indicators for South and North Korea in 2023 further

illustrates the depth of these disparities, underscoring the structural obstacles that limit

the feasibility of economic unification on the Korean Peninsula.

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Cultural Iberism and its Applicability to the Korean Peninsula

Jieun Kim

Table 1. Major Economic Indicators of North and South Korea (2023)

Category

Population

(thousand

persons)

Nominal

GNI

(trillion

KRW)

GNI per

capita

(million

KRW)

Economic

Growth

Rate (%)

Total

Trade

Volume

(billion

USD)

Government

Budget

(billion USD)

North

Korea

(A)

25,708.8

40.9

158.9

3.1

27.7억

91.3억

South

Korea

(B)

51,712.6

2,443.3

4,724.8

1.4

12,748.0억

3,418.0억

(B/A)

2.0

29.7

460.4

37.4

Source: Bank of Korea (2024, July 26)

Due to this overwhelming economic disparity, South Korean public opinion has

increasingly identified the anticipated economic burden of unification as the primary

reason for opposing reunification (Institute for Peace and Unification Studies 15).

According to survey results from 2024, economic burden ranked first at 33.9 percent,

followed by concerns over social problems that might emerge after unification at 27.9

percent. Differences in political systems between the two Koreas ranked third at 19.2

percent, while socio-cultural differences ranked fourth at 14.6 percent.

Despite these substantial constraints, several models of inter-Korean economic

cooperation have nonetheless been explored. Among the most prominent examples are

the Kaesong Industrial Complex and the Mount Kumgang Tourism Project. The

Kaesong Industrial Complex originated from agreements reached in 2000 and entered

full operation in 2005, following the provision of electricity, telecommunications

connectivity, and infrastructure construction by South Korea. By approximately 2015, a

total of 123 South Korean firms were operating in the complex, employing 54,988 North

Korean workers. The project aimed to designate Kaesong as an international free

economic zone and develop it into a central economic hub in Northeast Asia. However,

due to escalating security concerns—most notably North Korea’s nuclear tests and long-

range missile launches—the South Korean government suspended the operation of the

complex in 2015.

Similarly, discussions surrounding the Mount Kumgang Tourism Project began in 1998,

and in 2002 North Korea designated the Mount Kumgang area as a special tourism zone.

The introduction of overland travel in 2003 significantly increased visitor numbers.

However, the project was indefinitely suspended following the fatal shooting of a South

Korean tourist in 2008. Prior to its suspension, the cumulative number of visitors had

nearly approached two million.(National Archive of Korea, 2018)

Both projects were implemented through agreements between South Korea’s Hyundai

Group and North Korea’s Asia-Pacific Peace Committee. The institutional arrangements

of these initiatives further highlight the structural differences between the two economic

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systems: while private enterprises played a leading role on the South Korean side, the

North Korean side operated under direct state control.

Figure 1. Kaesong Industrial Complex

Figure 2. Mount Kumgang Tourism

Project

Source: The Joongang (2024, July 4), Hankyoreh (2019, October 19)

The Realities and Prospects of Inter-Korean Cultural Exchange

Inter-Korean cultural exchange and cooperation have taken place across a range of fields,

including music, performing arts, sports, and cultural heritage preservation. In the South

Korean context, cultural exchange initiatives have also been implemented through

government-affiliated institutions, such as agencies under the Ministry of Unification,

which operate various cultural experience programs. Nevertheless, these exchanges have

largely remained event-driven and short-term in nature, lacking institutional continuity

and sustainability. Although there appeared to be renewed momentum for cultural

exchange following the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics and the inter-Korean

summits, such efforts have since stagnated, and cultural interaction between the two

Koreas remains limited.

Within Iberist discourse, cultural Iberism is often presented as a more pragmatic and

feasible form of integration than political Iberism. In the Korean case, however, this logic

does not readily apply. According to a 2024 survey asking South Korean respondents

what they most strongly associate with the concept of “unification,” the majority (62.3

percent) identified unification as the political integration of North and South Korea into a

single state. The second most common response (19.8 percent) defined unification as

the free movement of people and goods across the border, while 11.6 percent associated

unification with intensified economic cooperation between the two Koreas. By contrast,

only 6.2 percent of respondents conceptualized unification in terms of cultural

convergence, such as the narrowing of differences in values, culture, and education

(Institute for Peace and Unification Studies 12).

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Table 2. South Korean people's perception of unification (2024)

Image of Unification

2024 (%)

political integration

62.3

unification with intensified economic cooperation

11.6

unification as the free movement of people and goods

across the border

19.8

unification in terms of cultural convergence

(differences in values, culture, and education)

6.2

others

0.1

Despite limited institutionalized exchange, a significant number of North Korean residents

are exposed to South Korean popular culture. Although the North Korean authorities

regard the consumption of Hallyu as a threat to regime stability and impose severe

sanctions, South Korean films, television dramas, and music continue to circulate through

illicit streaming channels and informal distribution networks. Exposure is not merely

passive; North Korean youth, in particular, demonstrate strong enthusiasm for South

Korean popular culture. As Taekbin Kim’s research indicates, South Korean dramas and

films represent one of the few accessible windows to the outside world for North Korean

residents (Kim 2025: 185). However, the growing popularity of Hallyu has been

accompanied by intensified state surveillance and censorship. In 2024, testimonies

emerged alleging that individuals were executed for distributing and viewing South

Korean television dramas. (YTN News 2024, July 29)

With regard to music and live performances, inter-Korean exchange was relatively active

in the period following the implementation of the Sunshine Policy, particularly from 1998

through the early 2000s. A notable feature of these exchanges was that performances

were primarily organized and led by South Korean private broadcasting companies and

cultural institutions. In 1999, major South Korean broadcasters such as SBS and MBC

hosted performances in North Korea featuring then-popular idol groups, mainstream

singers, and ballet companies. Throughout the early 2000s, South Korean artists

continued to perform in North Korea, including joint concerts in which performers from

both Koreas shared the stage. Prominent South Korean singers such as Kim Yon-ja, Lee

Mi-ja, and Cho Yong-pil also held solo concerts. These cultural exchanges declined

following the fatal shooting of a South Korean tourist at Mount Kumgang in 2008 but

were partially revived in 2018 in conjunction with the inter-Korean summit meetings,

which included renewed performances in North Korea.

Thus, cultural exchange has been significantly influenced by political circumstances and

security issues. In South Korea specifically, cultural exchange tended to increase during

the presidencies of progressive parties and decrease during those of conservative parties.

There was also a tendency for cultural exchange to temporarily increase when global

sporting events like the Olympics or World Cup were held in Korea.

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Persistent Ideological Conflict and the Impossibility of -philia

Unlike cases of lusophilia or hispanophilia, expressions of affection or admiration across

the Korean divide are subject to intense ideological scrutiny. In the Korean context, for a

South Korean to express positive sentiment toward North Korea—or for a North Korean

to express affinity for South Korea—constitutes a politically sensitive act that may trigger

accusations of ideological deviance or disloyalty. Although South Korea formally

guarantees freedom of thought and ideology, enabling the expression of pro-American,

pro-European, or pro-Chinese orientations, the articulation of a pro–North Korean stance

(ch’inbuk) remains effectively proscribed in practice.

This asymmetry reflects the persistence of ideological conflict between the two Koreas,

even more than eighty years after national division. The enduring legacy of the Cold War,

reinforced by ongoing security tensions and divergent state ideologies, continues to

structure the boundaries of permissible affect, identification, and cultural orientation. As

a result, the emergence of affective dispositions analogous to lusophilia or hispanophilia—

grounded in mutual admiration and cultural affinity—remains severely constrained on the

Korean Peninsula.

This structural constraint can be further understood through the lens of affective

nationalism and securitized identity formation. In divided societies, affect is not merely

a private disposition but a politically regulated domain, in which emotional orientations

toward the “other side” are subject to surveillance and moral judgment. On the Korean

Peninsula, expressions of sympathy, admiration, or cultural affinity toward the opposing

regime are frequently interpreted through a security-centered framework, wherein

affective attachment itself becomes politicized and securitized.

From this perspective, the near impossibility of -philia in the Korean case is not simply a

matter of individual prejudice or public opinion but the outcome of a historically

entrenched regime of ideological boundary-making. The prolonged division, sustained by

military confrontation and antagonistic state narratives, has produced rigid symbolic

boundaries that delimit not only political allegiance but also permissible forms of

emotional identification. Consequently, positive affect toward the other Korea is readily

conflated with ideological betrayal or national disloyalty, thereby foreclosing the

emergence of socially legitimate forms of cross-border admiration.

This stands in sharp contrast to the Iberian case, where lusophilia and hispanophilia could

develop as culturally sanctioned orientations despite historical conflict and rivalry. In

Iberia, the absence of an unresolved military standoff and the gradual normalization of

interstate relations allowed affective affinities to be articulated within literary, intellectual,

and cultural fields without being framed as threats to national security. In Korea, by

contrast, the unresolved armistice and the persistence of mutual securitization have

prevented affect from being disentangled from ideological allegiance.

Moreover, the asymmetry between the two Koreas further complicates the emergence of

-philia. While South Korean society formally upholds freedom of expression, the legal and

discursive legacies of anti-communism continue to restrict the social legitimacy of pro–

North Korean sentiment. In North Korea, state control over ideology and cultural

consumption entirely precludes the open articulation of admiration for South Korea. As a

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Jieun Kim

result, even when cultural fascination or curiosity exists—particularly among North

Korean youth exposed to South Korean popular culture—it remains confined to the

private or clandestine sphere and cannot crystallize into a publicly recognized or

institutionally supported form of -philia.

Taken together, these dynamics suggest that cultural affinity alone is insufficient to

generate durable forms of transnational affect in the absence of political and ideological

de-securitization. Unlike the Iberian context, where cultural exchange could precede or

substitute for political integration, the Korean case demonstrates that sustained

ideological confrontation fundamentally constrains the social conditions under which

affective orientations such as -philia can emerge. Any discussion of cultural

rapprochement on the Korean Peninsula must therefore account not only for cultural

policy or exchange mechanisms but also for the deeper structures of ideological

governance that regulate affect, loyalty, and belonging.

Conclusion: Practical Suggestions for cultural cooperation and its

obstacles

As discussed earlier, the concept of cultural Iberism articulated by Fernando Pessoa

functioned as a means of re-examining national identity by reflecting on the

commonalities shared by the two states of the Iberian Peninsula. Going beyond the

cultural realm, Pessoa sought to elevate characteristics distinctive to Iberia—such as

plasticity and cosmopolitanism—to the level of a civilizational project. This intellectual

endeavor must be understood within the historical context of the early 1910s, a period

marked by the intensification of nationalist sentiment and a widespread aspiration to

build strong and prosperous nation-states.

In contrast, as demonstrated by contemporary South Korean perceptions of unification,

many Koreans today no longer regard unification as an imperative grounded solely in the

idealized notion of a shared ethnic identity (Han minjok, Han ethnicity). Instead, public

attitudes toward unification are increasingly shaped by pragmatic considerations,

including security threats and anticipated economic burdens. Under these conditions,

cultural exchange can be understood as a practical and comparatively low-cost

mechanism for reducing the immediate burden associated with political unification, while

simultaneously mitigating the sense of disconnection between the two Koreas.

Among the various forms of cultural exchange, cooperation in the field of cultural heritage

holds particular potential for contributing to the reconstruction of national identity on the

Korean Peninsula. Despite their current political division, North and South Korea share a

long historical trajectory and a common body of cultural heritage. Through cultural

heritage exchange, the two Koreas can identify and reaffirm their cultural and historical

commonalities while minimizing the disruptive effects of ideological conflict. Such

cooperation also enables joint efforts in the preservation and transmission of shared

cultural assets.

In particular, the domain of intangible cultural heritage—including social customs,

seasonal rituals, traditional attire, and foodways—offers significant opportunities for

collaboration. Even without framing such initiatives explicitly as preparatory steps toward

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Jieun Kim

unification, joint research and exchange in this area can substantially enhance mutual

historical understanding. In this regard, Donghwan Yun argues that North and South

Korea should pursue concrete outcomes such as the joint inscription of shared intangible

cultural practices on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of

Humanity (Yun 2018: 135). Similarly, Lee Gui-young emphasizes the importance of

establishing physical spaces dedicated to the transmission and performance of intangible

cultural heritage. He proposes the creation of exchange venues—potentially within or

near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)—where recognized heritage practitioners from both

Koreas could engage in sustained and substantive interaction (Lee 2021: 198).

From a policy perspective, Jeong Eun-mi of the Korea Institute for National Unification

offers three key recommendations directed toward South Korea’s newly inaugurated Lee

Jae-myung administration. First, she advocates for a model in which civil society

organizations and local governments take the lead in socio-cultural exchange initiatives,

as government-led programs are more susceptible to ideological controversy and

partisan conflict. Second, she emphasizes the need for a phased roadmap accompanied

by clearly defined channels of communication to ensure the continuity of cultural

exchange. Finally, she underscores the importance of institutional support, including legal

and administrative reforms, to guarantee the stability and sustainability of such

exchanges over time (Jeong 2025: 3–4).

As many experts have observed, inter-Korean cultural exchange continues to depend

heavily on the orientations and political will of incumbent leaders. As a result, such

exchanges tend to take the form of temporary, event-driven initiatives. For this reason,

it is essential to establish mechanisms that enable sustained and institutionalized cultural

exchange, insulated from changes in political leadership and fluctuations in ideological

conflict.

References

Bank of Korea (2024, July 26).

https://www.bok.or.kr/portal/bbs/P0002240/view.do?menuNo=500766&nttId=100850

22 Accessed January 3, 2025.

Hankyoreh (2019, October 19).

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Isasi, Santiago. “Literature, Iberism(s), Nationalism(s): Notes for a History of Literary

Iberism(1868-1936)”, 452F, Vol. 11 (2014).

Jeong, Eunmi (2025). “Inter-Korean Social and Cultural Exchange and Cooperation:

Recovery and Rebound”, Online Series, Korea Institute for National Unification, CO23-

15.

KBS News (2024, August 15). “North Korea's per capita income gap with South Korea is

30 times... North Korea survives by clinging to nuclear weapons.”

https://news.kbs.co.kr/news/pc/view/view.do?ncd=8036287. Accessed January 3,

2026.

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Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and

Transnational Perspectives

June 2026, pp. 76-91

Cultural Iberism and its Applicability to the Korean Peninsula

Jieun Kim

Kim, Jieun (2025). “Iberianism of Fernando Pessoa: A proposal for the Integration of the

Iberian Peninsula as a Civilization Project”, The Journal of Contemporary European

Studies 43(3), pp. 1-4.

Kim, Taekbin (2025). “Hallyu (Korean Wave) in North Korea: The Effect of South Korean

Media Exposure on the Perceptions of North Koreans”, Asian Journal of Peacebuilding

13(2), pp.181-206.

Lee, Gwiyoung (2021). “Exchange Collabaration Plans on Intangible Properties of South

and North Kroea”, Studies in the Humanites 32, pp. 179-205

Mignolo, Walter. The Idea of Latin America (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005).

Ministry of Unification https://www.unikorea.go.kr/web/unikorea/contents/Pabout.

Accessed January 3, 2026.

National Archives of Korea (2018).

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Page=. Accessed January 3, 2026.

North Korea Information Portal (2024).

https://nkinfo.unikorea.go.kr/nkp/pge/view.do;jsessionid=_cDl0VCPI4ksxsBU13XRG9U

2zvEE9VqYXsbt3NLs.ins12?menuId=MENU_76. Accessed January 7, 2026.

Peace and Unification Studies (2025). 2025 Unification Perception Survey [Data book].

Seoul National University.

Pessoa, Fernando.“O Atlantismo,” Sobre Portugal – Introdução ao Problema Nacional

(Lisboa: Ática, 1979).

-----. Ultimatum e Páginas de Sociologia Política (Lisboa: Ática, 1980)

Santos, Boaventura Sousa. Pela Mão de Alice: o Social e o Político na Pós-Modernidade

(Coimbra: Almedina, 2013).

The JoongAng (2024, July 4). https://www.joongang.co.kr/article/25219667. Accessed

January 3, 2025.

Yun, Donghwan (2018). “Prospects for Inter-Korean Intangible Cultural Heritage

Exchange”, Intangible Heritage Studies 3(2), pp. 121-140.

YTN News (2024, July 29). “A man executed for distributing a South Korean drama...

even a white wedding dress sparked backlash.”

https://www.ytn.co.kr/_ln/0101_202406290529245585. Accessed January 3, 2025.

OBSERVARE

Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa

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Context: Security, Culture, and Transnational Perspectives

June 2026

SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE IN KOREA: INFRASTRUCTURAL ALIGNMENT,

TRANSLATION, AND CULTURAL MEDIATION

JAI-UNG HONG

juhong@hufs.ac.kr

Assistant Professor of Scandinavian Languages and Literatures at Hankuk University of Foreign

Studies (HUFS), Seoul (Republic of Korea). He completed his undergraduate studies in

Scandinavian Languages at HUFS and received both his MA and PhD in Theatre Studies from

Stockholm University. His academic training combines literary studies, theatre and performance,

and Nordic cultural history, providing a foundation for his interdisciplinary research across

literature, culture, and society in Scandinavia. His research interests lie at the intersection of

translation studies, cultural mediation, cultural politics, and public diplomacy, with particular

attention to how translation functions as a medium of cultural exchange rather than a purely

linguistic act. He has conducted sustained research on Nordic literature and drama, and has

published widely on Scandinavian authors, reception contexts, and cross-cultural circulation, both

in Korean and international academic venues. A central strand of his work examines how small-

language literatures gain credibility and visibility through translation, paratexts, and institutional

infrastructures. He currently serves as Director of the World Culture & Arts Institute and as a

steering committee member of the Semiosis Research Center. Through his combined roles as

scholar, translator, and cultural mediator, Hong is committed to advancing dialogue between

Scandinavia and Korea, and to exploring the role of translation and cultural mediation in

contemporary public diplomacy and international cultural relations.

Abstract

This article examines the Korean reception of Scandinavian literature as a process of co-

produced literary value, focusing on Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish works translated and

circulated in Korea. Challenging assumptions that small language literatures circulate

primarily through Anglophone hubs, it demonstrates how Scandinavian writing attained

durable visibility in Korea through minor-to-minor circulation sustained by local

infrastructures. Drawing on translation studies, paratext theory, world literature research, and

international-relations scholarship, the article conceptualizes literary value as an outcome of

infrastructural alignment. Translators' ethical practices, paratextual grammars, publisher

architectures, and critical mediation collectively shaped how Scandinavian literature became

legible and credible within Korean reading cultures. Methodologically, the analysis relies on

verifiable public indicators edition dynamics, paratexts, metadata, institutional signals, and

discourse rather than proprietary sales data. These are examined across three genre clusters:

Nordic noir, children's literature, and contemporary "quiet" prose, revealing distinct pathways

to visibility. From an international relations perspective, the case illustrates infrastructural

soft power: cultural attraction generated through routine mediation rather than promotional

spectacle. Translation grants reduce risk; metadata standards stabilize discovery; critics

cultivate interpretive communities, embedding foreign literature into everyday cultural life.

By foregrounding mediation infrastructures, the article contributes to reception studies and

cultural diplomacy debates, offering a transferable framework for analyzing literary circulation

in non-Anglophone contexts.

Keywords

Scandinavian literature, translation ethics, paratexts and metadata, cultural diplomacy,

infrastructural soft power.

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Scandinavian Literature in Korea: Infrastructural Alignment, Translation,

and Cultural Mediation

Jai-Ung Hong

Resumo

Este artigo analisa a receção da literatura escandinava na Coreia como um processo de

coprodução de valor literário, centrando-se em obras suecas, norueguesas e dinamarquesas

traduzidas e difundidas na Coreia. Desafiando os pressupostos de que as literaturas de línguas

minoritárias circulam principalmente através de centros anglófonos, demonstra como a

literatura escandinava alcançou uma visibilidade duradoura na Coreia através de uma

circulação «de minoridade para minoridade», sustentada por infraestruturas locais.

Recorrendo aos estudos de tradução, à teoria do paratexto, à investigação em literatura

mundial e aos estudos de relações internacionais, o artigo conceitua o valor literário como um

resultado do alinhamento infraestrutural. As práticas éticas dos tradutores, as gramáticas

paratextuais, as arquiteturas editoriais e a mediação crítica moldaram coletivamente a forma

como a literatura escandinava se tornou legível e credível no seio das culturas de leitura

coreanas. Metodologicamente, a análise baseia-se em indicadores públicos verificáveis —

dinâmicas de edição, paratextos, metadados, sinais institucionais e discurso — em vez de

dados de vendas proprietários. Estes são examinados em três grupos de géneros: noir

nórdico, literatura infantil e prosa «tranquila» contemporânea, revelando caminhos distintos

para a visibilidade. Numa perspetiva de relações internacionais, o caso ilustra o soft power

infraestrutural: atração cultural gerada através de mediação rotineira, em vez de espetáculo

promocional. As bolsas de tradução reduzem o risco; as normas de metadados estabilizam a

descoberta; os críticos cultivam comunidades interpretativas, incorporando a literatura

estrangeira na vida cultural quotidiana. Ao colocar em primeiro plano as infraestruturas de

mediação, o artigo contribui para os estudos de receção e os debates sobre diplomacia

cultural, oferecendo um quadro transferível para analisar a circulação literária em contextos

não anglófonos.

Palavras-chave

Literatura escandinava, ética da tradução, paratextos e metadados, diplomacia cultural, soft

power infraestrutural.

How to cite this article

Hong, Jai-Ung (2026). Scandinavian Literature in Korea: Infrastructural Alignment, Translation,

and Cultural Mediation. Janus.net, e-journal of international relations VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1 –

Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and Transnational

Perspectives, June 2026, pp. 92-114. DOI https://doi.org/10.26619/1647-7251.DT0426.6

Article submitted on December 31, 2025 and accepted for publication on February 10,

2026.

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VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1

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Scandinavian Literature in Korea: Infrastructural Alignment, Translation,

and Cultural Mediation

Jai-Ung Hong

SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE IN KOREA: INFRASTRUCTURAL

ALIGNMENT, TRANSLATION, AND CULTURAL MEDIATION

JAI-UNG HONG

Introduction

The Korean reception of Scandinavian literature complicates a widespread assumption in

world-literature scholarship: that small-language literatures circulate internationally

primarily through Anglophone hubs (Sievers & Levitt, 2020; Flotow, 2019; Bielsa, 2013).

Over the past century, Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish works have attained stable

visibility in Korea not because they were first consecrated in English, but because local

infrastructures gradually aligned. Translators cultivated recognizable voices and ethical

transparency; publishers and editors developed paratextual grammars that stabilized

reader expectations; libraries, platforms, and festivals provided institutional anchors; and

critics and reader communities articulated why these works mattered. Together, these

practices shifted Scandinavian titles from sporadic appearances to a durable cultural

presence.

Despite extensive work on global literary circulation, relatively little attention has been

paid to minor-to-minor routes—cases in which works travel directly between smaller

linguistic communities without mediation by dominant languages (Jusdanis, 2010;

HaCohen, 2014). Much existing research either privileges authors canonized through

global centers or relies on proprietary sales data that are rarely accessible and difficult

to audit (Saldanha, 2018; Cheah, 2014). As a result, the everyday infrastructures

through which literary value is assembled—edition management, metadata discipline,

and the mediating labor of librarians and critics—often remain analytically invisible

(Saldanha, 2018).

This article addresses that gap by examining the reception of Scandinavian literature in

Korea as a long-term case of co-produced literary value. Rather than treating value as

an intrinsic property of texts, the study conceptualizes value as emerging from

interactions among translation ethics, paratextual framing, and institutional interfaces.

Building on translation-studies debates about ethical responsibility and visibility, paratext

theory, world-literature approaches to circulation, and international-relations research

on soft power and cultural diplomacy, the article shows how attention is stabilized

through infrastructures that make reading credible, legible, and repeatable (Cheah,

2014; Sievers & Levitt, 2020; Shields, 2013; Genette & Maclean, 1991; Coldiron, 2012).

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Transnational Perspectives

June 2026, pp. 92-114

Scandinavian Literature in Korea: Infrastructural Alignment, Translation,

and Cultural Mediation

Jai-Ung Hong

Methodologically, the analysis relies on independently verifiable indicators—edition

dynamics, paratextual grammars, metadata and catalog fields, institutional signals

(prizes, grants, festivals), and discourse traces in criticism—rather than inaccessible sales

figures. These indicators are coded across genres and periods to reconstruct a trajectory

from early pedagogical introductions to contemporary diversification across Nordic noir,

children’s/YA classics, and contemporary “quiet” prose.

The article makes three contributions. First, it provides an empirically grounded account

of how Scandinavian literature became legible in Korea without Anglophone

intermediation. Second, it proposes a portable framework for reception research that

treats paratexts and metadata as primary evidence. Third, it reframes these dynamics

through an international-relations lens, interpreting them as forms of infrastructural soft

power produced not by messaging campaigns but by routine mediation practices.

The remainder of the article proceeds as follows. Section 2 outlines the theoretical

framework linking translation ethics, paratexts, world-literature circulation, and cultural

diplomacy. Section 3 explains the methodological approach and coding protocols. Section

4 reconstructs the historical trajectory of Scandinavian literature in Korea. Section 5

analyzes genre-specific reception mechanisms. Section 6 discusses broader

international-relations implications, and Section 7 concludes with reflections on research

design, translator training, and policy considerations.

An earlier version of this research was presented at an international academic

conference, and the present article substantially revises and expands that material

through additional empirical coding, verified bibliographic evidence, and extended

theoretical discussion.

Theoretical Framework

This study integrates four strands of scholarship—translation ethics, paratext theory,

world-literature circulation, and international-relations research on cultural diplomacy

and soft power—to examine how literary value is co-produced in non-Anglophone

contexts. Rather than treating these traditions as parallel debates, the article brings them

together around a single question: how do infrastructures mediate what counts as

credible literature across languages?

Translation Ethics and the Design of Reading

Translation has long been framed as a technical problem of equivalence, yet

contemporary debates emphasize its ethical and political dimensions. Spivak’s conception

of translation as responsibility foregrounds attentiveness to voice, rhetoric, and

singularity, resisting both mechanical literalism and aggressive domestication (Spivak,

Landry and MacLean, 1996). Ricœur’s notion of linguistic hospitality similarly

An earlier version of this study was presented as Hong, J.-U. (2025, June 26). The translation status of

Scandinavian literature in Korea and its significance [Conference presentation]. Korea–EU International

Conference on Peace, Language, and Cultural Diplomacy, Madrid, Spain.

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Transnational Perspectives

June 2026, pp. 92-114

Scandinavian Literature in Korea: Infrastructural Alignment, Translation,

and Cultural Mediation

Jai-Ung Hong

conceptualizes translation as an ethical encounter that welcomes the foreign while

preserving the integrity of the host language (Ricœur, 2006). Taken together, these

perspectives shift attention from accuracy alone to the design of reading experiences—

how cadence, hesitation, silence, and sociolect are carried across linguistic borders.

This ethical orientation has institutional consequences. As Venuti has argued, translator

invisibility is not neutral but part of a broader regime that obscures editorial decisions,

abridgments, and adaptation bases. In small-corpus circulation, such opacity risks textual

drift and erodes reader trust. Conversely, editions that acknowledge translator agency,

disclose source lineage, and briefly explain difficult choices tend to be more readily

adopted by libraries, educators, and critics. Translation ethics thus becomes inseparable

from institutional credibility.

Paratexts, Metadata, and Infrastructural Legibility

Genette’s theory of paratexts reconceptualizes covers, titles, blurbs, illustrations, and

series frames not as decorative supplements but as thresholds through which readers

enter the text (Genette & Maclean, 1991). In contemporary book ecosystems, these

thresholds are closely coupled with metadata—subject headings, authority records, series

identifiers, shelving codes, and platform categories. Together, paratexts and metadata

function as coordinating devices: they frame expectations, align audiences, and allow

institutions to recognize, classify, and circulate works.

For reception studies, this infrastructural role carries methodological implications.

Because paratexts and metadata leave durable public traces, they can be inspected,

archived, and compared across time. By coding image motifs, typography classes,

taglines, series architectures, and catalog descriptors, researchers can reconstruct how

interpretive expectations are assembled before reading occurs. In this article, paratexts

and metadata are therefore treated as primary evidence rather than peripheral context.

World Literature Beyond Metropolitan Pipelines

World-literature scholarship has illuminated the asymmetries that shape global literary

circulation, often emphasizing how metropolitan centers confer legitimacy on peripheral

literatures. While such models remain indispensable, they risk obscuring circulation

routes that do not pass through dominant languages. The Korean reception of

Scandinavian literature suggests an alternative configuration: minor-to-minor circulation,

in which value formation depends less on metropolitan endorsement than on the

maturation of local infrastructures.

Field-theoretic perspectives help explain how such circulation becomes possible. When

translators, editors, librarians, critics, and policy bodies converge around shared norms—

edition transparency, catalog discipline, and recurring review venues—symbolic capital

can accrue locally. Circulation thus appears not as a single pipeline but as a layered

process of mediation, each layer leaving partial yet verifiable traces.

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Transnational Perspectives

June 2026, pp. 92-114

Scandinavian Literature in Korea: Infrastructural Alignment, Translation,

and Cultural Mediation

Jai-Ung Hong

Cultural Diplomacy and Infrastructural Soft Power

International-relations research on cultural diplomacy and soft power provides a final

lens for interpreting these dynamics. Soft power is commonly defined as attraction

grounded in credibility and values, often associated with cultural exports, national

branding, or high-profile events. The Korean–Nordic literary relationship, however, points

to a quieter mechanism. Here, diplomacy emerges not from spectacle but from routine

mediation: translation grants that reduce commissioning risk, prize circuits that narrate

value, library policies that normalize discovery pathways, and platform standards that

stabilize metadata.

These processes generate what may be termed infrastructural soft power—forms of

attraction rooted in durable pathways that make foreign literature legible, reusable, and

discussable over time. Such power is incremental and rarely visible as policy intervention,

yet it shapes how readers imagine both foreign societies and their own cultural horizons.

Integrative Framework

Bringing these strands together yields an operational framework for analyzing reception

as infrastructural alignment. Translation ethics directs attention to the micro-design of

language; paratext theory highlights the framing of expectations; world-literature

perspectives contextualize asymmetries and local agency; and international-relations

scholarship clarifies why these alignments matter beyond the literary field. In practical

terms, this framework focuses on:

− edition dynamics and transparency,

− paratextual and metadata grammars,

− institutional anchors across libraries, platforms, prizes, and grants, and

− discourse traces that sustain interpretive communities.

Together, these dimensions make it possible to analyze the Korean reception of

Scandinavian literature not as linear diffusion but as the gradual co-production of value

across ethical practice, material interfaces, and institutional routines.

Methodology

This study adopts a qualitative research design based on triangulation of publicly

verifiable evidence. Because proprietary sales figures and internal publisher data in the

Korean book market are rarely accessible and typically protected by nondisclosure

agreements (Sapiro, 2008), the analysis deliberately avoids commercial indicators that

cannot be independently audited. Instead, it reconstructs reception histories through the

convergence of multiple observable traces of circulation and mediation, allowing claims

to remain transparent and replicable (Golafshani, 2003).

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VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1

Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and

Transnational Perspectives

June 2026, pp. 92-114

Scandinavian Literature in Korea: Infrastructural Alignment, Translation,

and Cultural Mediation

Jai-Ung Hong

The methodological approach should not be understood as a replacement for quantitative

market analysis, but as an alternative strategy suited to contexts where reliable sales

data are unavailable. By foregrounding public-facing artifacts—catalogs, paratexts,

institutional records, and criticism—the study prioritizes evidence that can be re-

examined by other researchers and compared across contexts (Jick, 1979; Olsen and

Holborn, 2004).

Corpus and Scope

The corpus consists of Korean translations of Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish literary

works circulating primarily through general trade channels. Academic translations

intended exclusively for specialist readerships, language-learning materials, and excerpts

published only in journals or magazines are excluded, unless there is clear evidence of

sustained general readership.

Within this trade-oriented corpus, the analysis focuses on three analytically distinct

clusters:

1. Crime fiction commonly grouped as Nordic noir

2. Children’s and young-adult classics

3. Contemporary reflective or so-called “quiet” prose

These clusters were selected because they display contrasting reader pathways,

paratextual grammars, and institutional anchoring, enabling structured comparison

across genres within the same national reception context (Genette & Maclean, 1991; Ali,

2018).

Sources and Data Collection

The analysis draws exclusively on publicly accessible and documentable sources,

including:

− National and university library catalogs

− Publisher catalogues and edition pages

− Metadata records on major Korean book platforms

− Prize announcements, festival programs, and translation-grant acknowledgments

− Professional criticism and long-form reviews in print and online media

− Physical and digital paratexts (covers, series frames, taglines, translator notes)

Coding and Analytical Procedure

Each item in the corpus was coded across six dimensions designed to capture both textual

framing and institutional embedding:

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Transnational Perspectives

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Scandinavian Literature in Korea: Infrastructural Alignment, Translation,

and Cultural Mediation

Jai-Ung Hong

− Genre and subgenre classification

− Paratextual grammar (image motifs, color palettes, typography, and tagline

semantics)

− Framing rhetoric (ethical, pedagogical, entertainment-oriented, or reflective)

− Institutional anchors (publisher and series identity, grants, prizes, festivals)

− Reader pathways (school or library adoption, book-club circulation, platform

curation)

− Edition transparency (source edition information, translator visibility, notes,

adaptation disclosure)

This coding scheme enables comparison across historical phases and genre clusters while

remaining sensitive to the specific conditions of the Korean literary field. Rather than

producing quantitative generalizations, the method seeks patterned convergence across

indicators, allowing reception to be analyzed as a process of infrastructural alignment

rather than as an outcome measured solely by market performance. Parts of the

empirical material and analytical framework employed in this study were previously

presented at an international academic conference.

Each representative title was verified against at least two independently accessible public

records, prioritized as publisher metadata, Kyobo listings, and the National Library of

Korea catalog; archived cover/metadata evidence is indexed by Item ID in Table 3.

Historical Trajectory: From Pedagogical Entry to Infrastructural

Consolidation

The reception of Scandinavian literature in Korea did not emerge as a sudden discovery

or market breakthrough. Instead, it developed gradually through overlapping phases,

each characterized by distinct infrastructures of mediation. Although the boundaries

between these phases are necessarily porous, a heuristic periodization clarifies how

translation practices, paratextual grammars, and institutional anchors slowly converged

to stabilize visibility and credibility over time.

The earliest traces of Scandinavian literature in Korea appeared primarily within

pedagogical contexts. Translations were often undertaken by scholars or educators and

framed as morally instructive, socially meaningful, or culturally informative rather than

as objects of leisure reading. Paratexts emphasized learning, understanding, and

comparative knowledge, positioning these works as gateways to distant societies rather

than as contemporary literary experiences. Circulation remained modest and frequently

took place outside mainstream trade channels. Cataloging practices reinforced this

framing by shelving such titles alongside world-literature surveys or educational

materials rather than contemporary fiction. Translator visibility was limited, and

metadata often provided minimal information about source editions.

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Transnational Perspectives

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Scandinavian Literature in Korea: Infrastructural Alignment, Translation,

and Cultural Mediation

Jai-Ung Hong

100

Despite these constraints, this phase played a foundational role. It introduced authors’

names, genres, and thematic associations into Korean intellectual discourse, establishing

reference points that later mediators—editors, critics, and librarians—could recognize and

reactivate. Scandinavian literature thus entered Korea first not as a market phenomenon

but as a pedagogical resource.

A second phase emerged with the rise of curated publishing series. As Scandinavian titles

were incorporated into children’s and young-adult lines, world-classics collections, or

contemporary literature series, paratexts became more standardized and legible. Visual

continuity across covers, typographic systems, and series introductions signaled editorial

intention and created recognizable packages for readers and institutions alike. Backlists

generated internal cross-references, encouraging incremental exploration rather than

one-off encounters.

This consolidation had three notable effects. First, it reduced risk: inclusion within a

curated series signaled prior editorial selection, lowering the threshold for libraries,

schools, and individual readers. Second, it amplified translator credibility, particularly

when the same translators became repeatedly associated with specific strands of

Scandinavian writing. Third, it stabilized cataloging and retrieval, as series identifiers and

authority records enabled more consistent classification across institutions. In this period,

Scandinavian literature in Korea ceased to be episodic and became repeatable, supported

by infrastructures that encouraged sustained discovery.

Over time, genre differentiation intensified, giving rise to three particularly salient

clusters. Crime fiction benefitted from seriality, recurring protagonists, and strong place-

based branding. Paratexts emphasized atmosphere, ethical ambiguity, and social

critique, while metadata consistently aligned these works with a recognizable

transnational genre. Libraries reinforced these pathways through crime-themed displays

and reading lists, further normalizing discovery.

Children’s and young-adult literature followed a different trajectory. Here, credibility

traveled through intergenerational trust. Edition transparency—clear translator

attribution, stable source references, and visual continuity across reprints—combined

with school curricula and library programs to embed Scandinavian titles into everyday

literacy practices. Occasional grants, festivals, or reading campaigns added symbolic

reinforcement without overwhelming the domestic framing.

A third cluster comprised contemporary works characterized by interiority, restraint, and

ethical hesitation. Their circulation depended less on plot-driven marketing than on

careful translation, subdued paratexts, and sustained critical mediation. Reviews and

essays taught readers how to value slowness, ambiguity, and understatement, while

minimalist cover designs signaled distance from commercial spectacle. This cluster

demonstrated that Scandinavian literature could circulate without sensational cues,

grounded instead in affective resonance and interpretive guidance.

Across these clusters, mediation was never uniform. Yet in each case, alignment among

translators, editors, librarians, critics, and platforms gradually converted sporadic

curiosity into sustained attention.

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Transnational Perspectives

June 2026, pp. 92-114

Scandinavian Literature in Korea: Infrastructural Alignment, Translation,

and Cultural Mediation

Jai-Ung Hong

101

A further phase unfolded with the growing dominance of digital platforms. As online

catalogs, search interfaces, and recommendation systems became central to discovery,

metadata discipline gained unprecedented importance. Subject headings, authority

records, and series identifiers increasingly determined whether titles surfaced in

searches, thematic carousels, or curated lists. Publishers responded by refining

descriptive texts and maintaining continuity across reissues, while libraries adopted

digital reading programs and thematic collections that extended visibility beyond physical

shelves. Festivals and embassy-supported events provided complementary symbolic

anchors, situating Scandinavian literature within broader cultural conversations.

In this environment, reception increasingly depended on whether books were legible to

infrastructures—discoverable, sortable, and reusable across platforms. Visibility was no

longer secured solely by editorial selection or critical acclaim but by the capacity of texts

to circulate smoothly through interconnected systems.

Taken together, these phases reveal a cumulative trajectory. What began as pedagogical

introduction evolved into series-based consolidation, diversified through genre-specific

pathways, and adapted to platform-mediated discovery. At no single moment did

Scandinavian literature suddenly “arrive” in Korea. Instead, credibility accumulated

through repetition, revision, and institutional memory.

Crucially, this history underscores that reception is not merely a matter of taste or

promotion. It is the outcome of co-produced infrastructures: translation ethics that foster

trust, paratextual grammars that frame expectations, metadata systems that stabilize

visibility, and institutional programs that invite participation. Where these elements align,

Scandinavian literature attains a durable place in Korean reading cultures; where

alignment falters, titles drift into obscurity.

This periodization therefore provides the empirical foundation for the genre-specific

analyses that follow, clarifying how historically formed mechanisms continue to structure

reception in the present. Together, these patterns demonstrate how translators, editors,

platforms, critics, and policy or prize bodies co-produce durable attention when their

practices align (see Table 1).

Table 1 consolidates the historically accumulated evidence discussed above by mapping

how different genre clusters are anchored in publicly observable infrastructures. Rather

than summarizing market success, the table visualizes the distinct mediation pathways

through which credibility has been stabilized across genres.

Together, these verified edition trajectories indicate that durability depends less on

isolated breakthroughs than on repeatable infrastructures of mediation—series

architectures, transparent edition lineage, and stable metadata—whose observable

traces are consolidated in Table 1.

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Scandinavian Literature in Korea: Infrastructural Alignment, Translation,

and Cultural Mediation

Jai-Ung Hong

102

Table 1. Reception of Scandinavian Literature via Public Data Sources

Data Source

Nordic Noir

Children's

& YA Classics

Contemporary

"Quiet" Prose

Library

Catalogs &

Metadata

Integrated into crime-

themed displays and

international genre

search fields.

Integrated into school

reading programs and

long-term literacy

practices.

Metadata often oscillates

between literary fiction,

essays, or "healing

literature."

Publisher

Catalogs &

Series

Established through

serial branding and

recurring protagonists.

Included in world-

classics or specialized

children's series to

maintain visual

continuity.

Planned as refined literary

collections emphasizing

translation craft.

Prizes,

Festivals &

Grants

Visibility boosted

through crime-themed

festivals and book club

programs.

Symbolic weight added

via translation grants

and embassy-linked

cultural events.

Validated through critical

essays, long-form

reviews, and literary

awards.

Physical &

Digital

Paratexts

Uses stark typography,

cold landscapes, and

social critique taglines.

Features prominent

translator credits,

stable source

references, and

consistent designs.

Employs minimal imagery,

muted palettes, and

spacious typography.

Genre-Specific Pathways to Visibility and Credibility

While the historical trajectory outlined in Section 4 clarifies how Scandinavian literature

gradually entered and stabilized within the Korean literary field, genre-specific analysis

reveals how these infrastructures operate unevenly across different narrative forms.

Genre does not merely classify texts; it structures expectations, mediating practices, and

institutional responses. Examining reception through genre therefore makes visible the

differentiated “recognition grammars” through which credibility is assembled(Alacovska,

2015; Verboord, Kuipers and Janssen, 2015).

To enable systematic comparison, this section applies a shared analytical framework

across genres, operationalized through six dimensions: genre categorization, paratext

grammar, framing rhetoric, institutional anchors, reader pathways, and edition

transparency.

Table 2 outlines the six analytical dimensions used to compare genre-specific pathways

in the Korean reception of Scandinavian literature. The framework operationalizes

reception as an infrastructural process by coding how genres are stabilized through

paratextual framing, institutional anchoring, metadata practices, and reader pathways.

Applying a shared set of dimensions across genres enables controlled comparison while

remaining sensitive to differences in narrative conventions and mediation practices.

Table 2 summarizes the coding scheme used throughout this section. By holding these

dimensions constant, the analysis avoids treating genre clusters as isolated cases and

instead examines how similar infrastructural elements are configured differently

depending on genre conventions and reader expectations.

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Scandinavian Literature in Korea: Infrastructural Alignment, Translation,

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103

Table 2. Analysis by Six Core Dimensions

Analytical

Dimension

Nordic Noir

Children's

& YA Literature

Contemporary

"Quiet" Prose

1. Genre

Categorization

Classified as

international crime

fiction or socially

diagnostic thrillers.

Defined as world

classics, pedagogical

resources, or coming-

of-age tales.

Positioned as

contemplative literary

fiction or "healing"

essayistic prose.

2. Paratext

Grammar

Subdued palettes, stark

typography, and

atmospheric motifs

(e.g., northern

darkness).

Consistent series

frames, recognizable

illustrations, and high-

readability fonts.

Minimalist covers with

muted imagery and

ample white space.

3. Framing

Rhetoric

Entertainment/Social

Critique: Focuses on

institutional failures and

moral ambiguity.

Pedagogical/Ethical:

Focuses on character

formation and social

meaning.

Reflective/Affective:

Focuses on interiority,

everyday relations, and

rhythm.

Institutional

Anchors

Crime-themed series

identities, genre

festivals, and

specialized critics.

Publisher series,

translation grants, and

school/library adoption.

Literary awards, critical

mediation via long-

form reviews, and

workshops.

5. Reader

Pathways

Genre-based discovery

via platforms and

crime-themed library

lists.

Intergenerational trust

passed from

parents/teachers to

children.

Curation through book

clubs, social media

"healing" trends, and

critical essays.

6. Edition

Transparency

Focuses on atmospheric

branding and multi-

volume continuity.

Highest: Explicit

translator credits,

stable source

references, and

explanatory notes.

Emphasis on the

translator's sensitivity

to rhythm and tonal

shifts.

The discussion focuses on three clusters that have proven especially durable in the

Korean context: Nordic noir, children’s and young-adult literature, and contemporary

“quiet” prose. Each cluster is illustrated through one representative case, selected from

the verified corpus and documented in the evidence registers.

Nordic Noir: Seriality, Atmosphere, and Institutional Repetition

Nordic noir occupies a distinctive position in the Korean reception of Scandinavian

literature. Its visibility is strongly shaped by seriality, place-based branding, and a

paratextual emphasis on atmosphere rather than plot resolution(Hill, 2018; Stougaard-

Nielsen, 2016; Dodds & Hochscherf, 2020). Covers frequently deploy muted color

palettes, stark typography, and visual cues associated with cold landscapes or social

isolation, while blurbs foreground moral ambiguity and institutional failure.

Representative case: Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Korean edition)

In the Korean editions of Larsson’s Millennium series, credibility is stabilized through

three intersecting mechanisms. First, serial continuity reduces entry risk: once readers

and libraries commit to the first volume, subsequent installments benefit from cumulative

familiarity. Second, critics and reviewers routinely frame the series as “socially

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Scandinavian Literature in Korea: Infrastructural Alignment, Translation,

and Cultural Mediation

Jai-Ung Hong

104

diagnostic,” emphasizing its engagement with gender violence, corruption, and welfare-

state contradictions rather than positioning it as mere entertainment. Third, libraries,

book clubs, and crime-themed reading programs repeatedly circulate the series,

producing episodic but sustained visibility.

At the same time, Nordic noir illustrates the risks of over-calibration. Marketing strategies

that exaggerate brutality or “northern darkness” can narrow interpretive horizons,

flattening Scandinavian societies into a homogeneous landscape of crime and despair.

When paratexts drift toward spectacle, long-term interpretive communities weaken, even

if short-term attention increases(Genette & Maclean, 1991).

Children’s and Young-Adult Literature: Trust, Continuity, and

Intergenerational Mediation

Children’s and YA literature follows a markedly different pathway to credibility. Here,

legitimacy rests less on novelty or intensity than on continuity, transparency, and

intergenerational endorsement.

Representative case: Astrid Lindgren, The Brothers Lionheart (Korean editions)

Across multiple Korean editions, The Brothers Lionheart exemplifies how trust

accumulates through stable mediation. Translator names are consistently foregrounded,

source editions are clearly specified, and reprints maintain recognizable design

architectures. These features reassure parents, teachers, and librarians that the text has

not been arbitrarily abridged or domesticated.

Institutional anchors play a decisive role. School reading programs and library initiatives

integrate the book into recurring literacy practices, while occasional cultural events and

reading campaigns reinforce its status without overt promotion. Over time, the work

becomes familiar not as a foreign classic requiring justification, but as a reliable

companion in childhood reading.

The primary risk in this cluster is over-pedagogization. When paratexts emphasize moral

instruction too heavily, literature risks being reduced to an educational instrument, losing

the emotional openness that sustains rereading across generations. Nevertheless, when

transparency and continuity are maintained, children’s literature demonstrates one of the

most durable reception pathways in the Korean context(Bradford, 2011). The following

representative titles anchor the genre-cluster analysis; each was verified through at least

two public records and indexed with a cover/metadata evidence ID (see Table 3).

Building on these verified anchors, the analysis now examines how paratext and

institutional mediation differ across the three clusters. The patterns observed in this

representative case are not idiosyncratic but recur across verified Korean editions of

Scandinavian children’s and young-adult literature, as summarized in Table 3, which

maps the recurring presence of Scandinavian titles across genre clusters in the Korean

market.

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Scandinavian Literature in Korea: Infrastructural Alignment, Translation,

and Cultural Mediation

Jai-Ung Hong

105

While children’s and YA literature demonstrates how trust and continuity stabilize

reception over time, the next cluster illustrates a contrasting pathway in which credibility

depends less on transparency and more on translation craft and critical mediation.

Table 3. Representative Scandinavian Works in the Korean Market

Cluster

Representative work

(Author, Original title)

Verified

Korean

edition

year

ISBN

Verification

sources

Cover

evidence

Nordic noir

(Sweden)

Stieg Larsson, Men Who

Hate Women(2005),

Millennium series

2017

9788954646581

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

NNO-01

Nordic noir

(Sweden)

Hennig Mankell, The

Troubled Man(2009),

Wallander series

2013

9788901161204

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

NNO-02

Nordic noir

(Sweden)

Maj Sjövall / Per wahlöö,

The Man Who Went Up in

Smoke(1966), Martin

Beckseries

2017

9788954644440

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

NNO-03

Children/YA

(Sweden)

Astrid Lindgren, The

Brothers Lionheart(1973)

2015

9788936446734

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

CYA-01

Children/YA

(Sweden)

Tove Jansson,

Moominpappa at

Sea(1965), Moomin Series

2023

9791160269765

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

CYA-02

Children/YA

(Sweden)

Maria Gripe, The

Glassblower’s

Children(1964)

2006

9788949170800

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

CYA-03

Quiet prose

(Sweden)

Fredrik Backman, An man

called Ove(2012)

2023

9791130605210

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

QP-01

Quiet prose

(Sweden)

Jonas Jonasson, The

Hundred-Year-Old Man

Who Climbed Out the

Window and

Disappeared(2009)

2013

9788932916194

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

QP-02

Quiet prose

(Sweden)

Lena Andersson, Duck

City(2006)

2010

9788937490170

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

QP-03

Nordic noir

(Denmark)

Jussi Adler-Olsen, A

Conspiracy of Faith(2009)

Department Q series

2019

9788932919454

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

NNO-04

Nordic noir

(Denmark)

Peter Høeg, Frøken, Miss

Smilla's Feeling for

Snow(1992)

2005

9788989351733

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

NNO-05

Children/YA

(Denmark)

Hans Christian Andersen,

The Snow Queen(1845)

2019

9791189660949

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

CYA-04

Children/YA

(Denmark)

Bjarne Reuter, The Boys

from St. Petri(1991)

2010

9788964291016

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

CYA-05

Children/YA

(Denmark)

Jakob martin Strid, Mimbo

Jimbo and the Long

Winter(2014), Mimbo

Jimbo series

2016

9788932374147

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

CYA-06

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Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and

Transnational Perspectives

June 2026, pp. 92-114

Scandinavian Literature in Korea: Infrastructural Alignment, Translation,

and Cultural Mediation

Jai-Ung Hong

106

Quiet prose

(Denmark)

Martin Andersen Nexø,

Pelle the Conqueror(1906-

10)

2009

9788950917739

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

QP-04

Quiet prose

(Denmark)

Karen Blixen, Babette's

Feast(1950)

2016

9788954616584

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

QP-05

Quiet prose

(Denmark)

Eva Tind, Origins(2019)

2021

9788965457343

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

QP-06

Nordic noir

(Norway)

Jo Nesbø, Killing

Moon(2017), Harry Hole

Series

2025

9791173323614

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

NNO-06

Nordic noir

(Norway)

Karin Fossum, Don't Look

Back(1996), Konrad Sejer

Series

2007

9788975275746

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

NNO-07

Nordic noir

(Norway)

Anne Holt, Dead

Joker(1999)

2012

9788937474040

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

NNO-08

Children/YA

(Norway)

Jostein Gaarder, Sofies

Verden(1991)

2015

9788932317663

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

CYA-07

Children/YA

(Norway)

Maria Parr, Astrid the

unstoppable(2009)

2013

9788974141486

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

CYA-08

Children/YA

(Norway)

Håkon Øvreås,

Brown(2013)

2019

9781592702121

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

CYA-09

Quiet prose

(Norway)

Per Petterson, Out

Stealing Horses(2003)

2020

9788935663415

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

QP-07

Quiet prose

(Norway)

Dag Solstad,

Professor Andersen's

Night(2016)

2016

9788954642231

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

QP-08

Quiet prose

(Norway)

Karl Ove Knausgård, My

Struggle I-III(2009-2011)

2016

9788935670123

Publisher /

Kyobo / NLK

QP-09

Contemporary “Quiet” Prose: Translation Craft and Critical Mediation

A third cluster encompasses contemporary works characterized by interiority, ethical

hesitation, and subdued narrative tempo. These texts circulate without sensational cues

and depend heavily on translation craft and critical framing(Baker, 2019; Genette &

Maclean, 1991).

Representative case: Jon Fosse, Morning and Evening (Korean edition)

In the Korean reception of Fosse’s prose, credibility is stabilized primarily through

translator sensitivity and critical mediation. Short paratextual remarks occasionally signal

attention to rhythm, silence, and repetition, preparing readers for a reading experience

marked by slowness and restraint. Covers tend toward minimalism, with ample white

space and understated imagery.

Critical essays and long-form reviews play a disproportionate role in this cluster. Rather

than summarizing plots, critics instruct readers in how to approach ambiguity and ethical

openness as literary virtues. Metadata classification, however, often oscillates between

literary fiction, essayistic prose, and so-called “healing literature,” revealing institutional

uncertainty about how to categorize restraint.

The central risk here lies in over-therapeutic framing. When paratexts promise comfort

or emotional repair, they risk flattening the ethical complexity of the text, transforming

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and Cultural Mediation

Jai-Ung Hong

107

literature into a lifestyle artifact. Sustainability therefore depends on mediators—

translators and critics—who protect interpretive openness rather than enclosing it within

self-help discourse(Chamberlain, 2015).

Comparative Synthesis Across Genres

Read comparatively, the three clusters reveal patterns that remain invisible when genres

are analyzed in isolation. Alignment emerges when translation ethics, paratext

grammars, and institutional anchors reinforce one another, as in the transparency-driven

pathways of children’s literature or the serial branding of Nordic noir(Alacovska, 2015;

Genette & Maclean, 1991). Drift appears when marketing promises detach from textual

experience, whether through oversensational crime framing or excessive pedagogical or

therapeutic cues(Drucker, 2018).

Table 4 synthesizes the genre-specific findings by applying the six analytical dimensions

to representative works from Nordic noir, children’s/young-adult literature, and

contemporary “quiet” prose.

The table highlights points of alignment, drift, and infrastructural coherence across

genres, showing how different configurations of translation ethics, paratext grammars,

and institutional mediation produce distinct forms of literary credibility and durability

within the same national reception field.

Table 4 synthesizes these observations by applying the six analytical dimensions from

Table 2 across representative works in each cluster. The comparison highlights how

infrastructural coherence—stable metadata, recurring institutional programs, and

consistent framing—enables repeatable discovery pathways, while misalignment

produces fragility even for otherwise acclaimed texts.

Taken together, the genre-specific analysis confirms the article’s central claim: literary

reception is not the outcome of inherent textual value alone, but of co-produced

infrastructures that align ethical practice, framing strategies, and institutional mediation.

This conclusion prepares the ground for Section 6, where these dynamics are interpreted

more explicitly through the lens of cultural diplomacy and infrastructural soft power.

To consolidate the cross-genre comparison, Table 4 summarizes the six coded

dimensions across the verified item set indexed in Table 3.

Taken together, the patterns in Table 4 show that reception becomes durable when

translation ethics, paratext/metadata framing, and institutional anchors align into

repeatable pathways of discovery and interpretation—an alignment that underpins the

discussion that follows.

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Table 4. Cross-Cluster Summary of Mediation Dimensions (coded items indexed in Table 3)

Analytical dimension

(coded)

Nordic noir

(Item IDs)

Children’s/YA (Item

IDs)

Quiet prose (Item

IDs)

1. Genre / subgenre

positioning

Transnational

crime; “Nordic

noir” branding;

serial/series logic

dominates

discovery (NNO-

01–NNO-03)

Classic children’s/YA;

canon/heritage

framing;

intergenerational trust

cues (CYA-01–CYA-

03)

Literary fiction /

reflective prose;

“contemplative/quiet”

positioning; often cross-

listed (QP-01–QP-03)

2. Paratext grammar

(cover motif,

typography, tagline)

Cool/dark palette,

stark typography;

taglines emphasize

social critique,

institutions, moral

tension (NNO-01–

NNO-03)

Illustration/character-

centered imagery;

stable series design

across reprints; taglines

emphasize growth,

courage, imagination

(CYA-01–CYA-03)

Minimal or restrained

design; spacious

typography; taglines

emphasize ordinary life,

ethics of care,

introspection (QP-01–

QP-03)

3. Framing rhetoric

(promises made to

readers)

“Diagnostic”

framing

(society/institution

s); suspense +

ethical ambience;

credibility via

recognizable noir

cues (NNO-01–

NNO-03)

Safety/appropriateness

+ literary value;

“recommended reading”

rhetoric;

affective/educational

balance (CYA-01–CYA-

03)

Aesthetic/ethical

nuance;

ambiguity/slowness

framed as value; risk of

“healing/therapy” over-

framing (QP-01–QP-

03)

4. Institutional

anchors

(publisher/series,

prizes, grants, events)

Series lines and

multi-volume

packaging;

festival/curation

spikes; sometimes

anchored by

crime-themed lists

(NNO-01–NNO-

03)

School/library adoption

and reading programs;

classic series lines;

occasional

embassy/grant visibility

reinforces legitimacy

(CYA-01–CYA-03)

Critics/long-form

reviews and curated

“literary” lines;

festivals/author events

can punctuate attention

(QP-01–QP-03)

5. Reader pathways

(how books become

discoverable/repeatab

le)

Platform search +

series recognition;

readers follow

“next volume”

logic; book

clubs/genre lists

recirculate backlist

(NNO-01–NNO-

03)

Parents/teachers/librari

ans as gatekeepers;

school/library

collections create

recurring rediscovery;

reprints sustain

familiarity (CYA-01–

CYA-03)

Discovery via

criticism/interviews/cura

ted lists; slower uptake;

sustained by interpretive

communities rather than

algorithmic momentum

(QP-01–QP-03)

6. Edition

transparency (source

edition, translator

visibility, notes,

adaptation disclosure)

Generally

adequate

metadata; main

risk is expectation

mismatch rather

than edition

opacity; translator

visibility varies

(NNO-01–NNO-

03)

Transparency is central:

translator credit, edition

lineage, illustration

cycle; risk rises when

abridgment/adaptation

is not signposted (CYA-

01–CYA-03)

Translator/editor notes

can be high-leverage for

tone/rhythm; risk is

marketing drift

(“healing” tags)

flattening ethical

complexity (QP-01–QP-

03)

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and Cultural Mediation

Jai-Ung Hong

109

Synthesis: main

“alignment” drivers

Series coherence +

noir paratext

grammar +

platform

discoverability

(NNO-01–NNO-

03)

Edition transparency +

institutional

gatekeeping

(school/library) + series

continuity (CYA-01–

CYA-03)

Critical mediation +

restrained framing +

translator craft/visibility

(QP-01–QP-03)

Primary “drift” risks

Over-sensational

marketing;

flattening Nordic

societies into

“darkness” cliché

(NNO-01–NNO-

03)

Over-pedagogization;

edition opacity in

reprints/adaptations

(CYA-01–CYA-03)

Over-therapeutic

framing; category

ambiguity harming

discoverability (QP-01–

QP-03)

Note. Item IDs refer to Table 3, where each representative title is verified through at least two

public records and archived with cover/metadata evidence IDs.

Discussion and Implications

The analysis of historical phases and genre-specific pathways reveals that the Korean

reception of Scandinavian literature has not depended on a single agent—neither

publishers, translators, critics, nor state institutions alone. Instead, value has emerged

through a distributed process in which multiple actors, artifacts, and infrastructures

gradually align. This section synthesizes those findings and discusses their broader

implications for translation studies, reception research, and the study of cultural

diplomacy.

The findings invite a rethinking of literary value beyond conventional binaries such as

center/periphery or original/translation. Scandinavian titles in Korea gained credibility

not because they were canonized elsewhere first, but because local infrastructures

learned how to stabilize them: translators cultivated ethical clarity, paratexts framed

expectations, metadata made titles searchable, and institutions generated recurring

occasions for attention.

In this sense, value appears less as an essence carried by texts than as the outcome of

infrastructural alignment. When alignment holds, books become repeatedly discoverable

and discussable; when it fractures, even strong literary works fade from view. This

perspective shifts the analytical spotlight from symbolic prestige to the mundane routines

that sustain literary circulation (Heilbron & Sapiro, 2007).

Figure 1 should be read not as a linear transmission model but as an ecological diagram.

The arrows indicate recursive feedback rather than one-directional flow, emphasizing

that credibility is continuously negotiated across policy, mediation, and reception layers.

A tripartite model helps clarify these dynamics by illustrating the interaction between

institutional support, mediation and gatekeeping, and socio-cultural reception. Rather

than functioning as linear transmission, these layers operate through feedback loops in

which credibility is gradually reinforced or weakened over time. Paratexts and metadata

play a central role in this process. Far from being peripheral add-ons, they constitute

primary evidence for understanding reception, because they leave durable and publicly

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and Cultural Mediation

Jai-Ung Hong

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inspectable traces that shape how readers are invited to approach foreign literature

before reading even begins (Genette & Maclean, 1991).

Figure 1. Reception-Mediation Ecology of Scandinavian Literature in Korea

Treating such materials as primary evidence also has methodological implications.

Because catalogs, covers, authority records, and classification systems are publicly

accessible, claims about reception can be audited, revisited, and challenged by other

researchers. This contrasts with arguments grounded primarily in proprietary sales data

or anecdotal impressions, which are difficult to verify and often inaccessible. The Korean–

Scandinavian case thus demonstrates how small-language literatures can circulate along

minor-to-minor routes when local infrastructures mature, without dependence on

Anglophone consecration. Translators, librarians, editors, and critics collectively exercise

agency in shaping these routes, building recognizable grammars of trust within peripheral

fields (Heilbron & Sapiro, 2007).

Viewed through an international-relations lens, these dynamics resemble a form of

cultural diplomacy that operates quietly, without overt messaging or spectacle. Embassy

events, translation grants, festivals, and library initiatives do not dictate meaning.

Instead, they reduce risk, establish continuity, and normalize discovery. The result is

what may be called infrastructural soft power: attraction grounded not in slogans or

campaigns, but in durable pathways that make foreign literature feel credible, reusable,

and worth revisiting (Nye, 2017).

This perspective carries pragmatic implications. For publishers, consistent series

architectures, transparent edition notes, and restrained marketing help build long-term

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and Cultural Mediation

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111

trust, whereas over-sensational framing may generate temporary attention at the cost

of interpretive communities. For translators, modest visibility—clear acknowledgment of

choices and constraints rather than self-promotion—supports credibility across

institutions. For libraries and schools, curated reading programs and stable catalog

descriptors can anchor foreign titles beyond market cycles. For cultural agencies, small

and repeatable supports may prove more effective over time than sporadic high-profile

events.

At the same time, caution is necessary. The findings emerge from a single national

context and rely primarily on public indicators such as catalogs, paratexts, institutional

records, and criticism. These traces cannot fully capture informal exchanges, private

reading communities, or the affective dimensions of reader response. Nor do they allow

precise measurement of market impact. The approach therefore explains how credibility

is stabilized, not how much influence specific titles ultimately exert.

Taken together, the Korean case illustrates that the circulation of small-language

literatures depends less on singular breakthroughs than on the slow accumulation of

infrastructures that reduce risk, preserve transparency, and invite participation.

Investing in these mundane but durable mediations may ultimately matter more than

any single promotional campaign. If the goal is not merely to export books but to cultivate

shared interpretive worlds, then the work of building infrastructures becomes central

both to literary reception and to the quiet practice of cultural diplomacy.

Conclusion

This article has traced how Scandinavian literature became visible and sustainable in

Korea through a long process of mediation rather than through intrinsic textual value or

prior consecration by Anglophone centers. Across historical phases and genre-specific

pathways, the analysis demonstrated that credibility emerged gradually from the

alignment of translators, editors, librarians, critics, platforms, and cultural agencies.

Literary value, in this account, appears not as a property carried by texts alone, but as

the outcome of infrastructures that make reading credible, legible, and repeatable within

a given reception field (Heilbron & Sapiro, 2007).

Methodologically, the study showed the analytical value of treating paratexts and

metadata as primary evidence for reception research. Because such materials leave

durable and publicly inspectable traces, they allow transparent and reproducible analysis

of how readers are invited to approach foreign literature—often before reading even

begins. Covers, taglines, catalog records, and classification systems collectively script

expectations and delimit interpretive horizons. Focusing on these public artifacts offers a

viable alternative to approaches that rely primarily on proprietary sales data or anecdotal

impressions, which are often inaccessible and difficult to verify. Detailed evidence

registers and coding protocols are provided in the appendices to enable replication and

re-examination of the analytical claims advanced in the main text.

Substantively, the article identified three genre-specific pathways—Nordic noir, children’s

and young-adult literature, and contemporary “quiet” prose—each assembling credibility

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and Cultural Mediation

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through a distinct configuration of mediation practices. Crime fiction relied on seriality

and calibrated atmosphere; children’s literature accumulated trust through transparency

and institutional continuity; and quiet prose depended on restrained framing and critical

guidance. These clusters revealed that sustainability in reception is genre-sensitive and

contingent on how translation ethics, paratextual grammars, and institutional anchors

reinforce one another over time.

Theoretically, the Korean–Scandinavian case reframes debates in world literature and

translation studies by foregrounding infrastructural alignment rather than symbolic

prestige. It also contributes to international-relations scholarship by suggesting that

long-term reading infrastructures can function as a form of infrastructural soft power:

attraction generated without spectacle or overt messaging, but through routine

mediation that normalizes discovery and reuse (Nye, 2017). In this sense, cultural

diplomacy operates less through campaigns than through the slow stabilization of trust

across institutions and interpretive communities.

At the same time, the findings must be interpreted with caution. The analysis is limited

to a single national context and relies primarily on public indicators such as catalogs,

paratexts, institutional records, and criticism. These traces cannot fully capture informal

circulation, private reading practices, or the affective dimensions of reader response, nor

do they allow precise measurement of cultural impact. The approach therefore explains

how credibility is stabilized not how much influence specific titles ultimately exert.

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OBSERVARE

Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa

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YES, REUNIFICATION BY ABSORPTION WOULD BE A

CATASTROPHE FOR KOREA

JONGHO PARK

jong@hufs.ac.kr

Research professor at the Center for International Area Studies (CIAS), Hankuk University of

Foreign Studies (HUFS) in Seoul (Republic of Korea). He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from

Binghamton University (SUNY), United States. Park’s research encompasses the issues of public

choice, specifically federalism and party system. His work has appeared in several journals,

including British Journal of Politics and International Relations

Abstract

This article argues that reunification by absorption would make democratic institutional

transfer in Korea politically unstable. Existing discussions often assume that if North Korea

collapses, South Korea’s democratic institutions can simply be extended to the North. I argue

that this view overlooks a prior condition: brokerage institutions capable of mediating

distributive conflicts across the former divide. In their absence, post-unification democracy

would likely intensify distributive conflict and political outbidding. Yet the survival of such

brokerage institutions depends on the timing of their implementation and on organizational

capacity. Reunification by absorption is precisely a scenario in which both conditions are

structurally absent.

Keywords

Reunification by absorption, Korean unification, democratic institutional transfer, distributive

conflict, political outbidding.

Resumo

Este artigo defende que a reunificação por absorção tornaria a transferência de instituições

democráticas na Coreia politicamente instável. Os debates atuais partem frequentemente do

pressuposto de que, caso a Coreia do Norte entre em colapso, as instituições democráticas

da Coreia do Sul poderão simplesmente ser alargadas ao Norte. Defendo que esta visão ignora

uma condição prévia: a existência de instituições de mediação capazes de arbitrar conflitos

distributivos de ambos os lados da antiga divisão. Na sua ausência, a democracia pós-

reunificação provavelmente intensificaria os conflitos distributivos e a escalada política. No

entanto, a sobrevivência dessas instituições de mediação depende do momento da sua

implementação e da capacidade organizacional. A reunificação por absorção é precisamente

um cenário em que ambas as condições estão estruturalmente ausentes.

Palavras-chave

Reunificação por absorção, unificação coreana, transferência institucional democrática,

conflito distributivo, disputa política.

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How to cite this article

Park, Jongho (2026). Yes, Reunification by Absorption Would be a Catastrophe for Korea.

Janus.net, e-journal of international relations VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1 – Thematic Dossier – The Korean

Peninsula in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and Transnational Perspectives, June 2026, pp.

115-129. DOI https://doi.org/10.26619/1647-7251.DT0426.7

Article submitted on March 14, 2025 and accepted for publication on March 30, 2026.

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YES, REUNIFICATION BY ABSORPTION WOULD BE A

CATASTROPHE FOR KOREA

JONGHO PARK

Introduction

The literature on Korean unification has generally rested on two assumptions. The first

is that unification remains a desirable national task in the long run. The second is that,

should the North Korean regime collapse or rapidly weaken, South Korea’s liberal

institutions could simply be extended to the North Korea. South Korean reunification

discourse has long framed division as a condition to be overcome through the restoration

of national homogeneity. Foundational works have similarly treated division as a

historical rupture in an otherwise shared national community.

The existing literature may be broadly grouped into four strands. The first consists of

comparative and institutional-design studies that draw on historical cases such as

Germany, Italy, and the United States in order to assess the feasibility and potential

challenges of Korean unification. These works focus on issues such as income gaps,

legitimacy, elite neutralization, administrative integration, and constitutional design

(Brada, 2023; Vogel and Best, 2016; Shin and Jeong, 2020).

The second strand emphasizes transitional arrangements such as confederation,

commonwealth, or gradual coexistence. Rather than viewing immediate absorption as

desirable, this literature highlights the need for an interim framework that stabilizes the

former divide over time (Kwon and Park, 2019; Lee and Lee, 2019)

The third strand examines the democratic adaptation of North Korean defectors. This

body of research focuses on the micro-foundations of democratic incorporation and

suggests that identity, belonging, and civic socialization shape the extent to which North

Korean migrants adapt to democratic norms (Hur 2018).

A fourth strand addresses the problem of transition within North Korea itself. Its central

concern is the durability of authoritarian rule and the prospects for political

transformation inside the North.

These literatures provide important insights, but they share a common limitation. For

instance, comparative studies of unification offer useful discussions of what institutions

might be adopted, yet they say less about why such institutional designs fail to be stable

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-

2020S1A6A3A04064633) and supported by the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Research Fund.

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once implemented (Brada 2023; Anderson 2016; Hartzell and Hoddie, 2015) Studies of

confederation arrangements emphasize the importance of gradualism and coexistence,

but they often leave unspecified the conflicts that such arrangements are expected to

mediate (Kwon and Park, 2019; Lee and Lee, 2019)

The existing literature has asked far less why democracy itself may become unstable

after unification, and still less how distributive conflicts might destabilize democracy in

the absence of mechanisms capable of containing them. I argue that reunification by

absorption should be understood not simply as a problem of regime replacement, but as

a situation in which democratic institutional transfer is attempted in the absence of

institutions capable of mediating distributive conflict.

This article shifts the focus from constitutional design to distributive conflict. The key

institutional condition is the presence of brokerage institutions capable of mediating

distributive conflict (Bormann et al., 2019; Strøm et al., 2017; Hartzell and Hoddie,

2015). Because the survival of such brokerage institutions depends on timing and

organizational capacity, they must emerge before distributive conflict hardens into

communal politics and must possess enough organizational reach to make participation

in the new order credible.

Reunification by absorption is precisely a scenario in which both conditions are

structurally absent. Institutional transfer may occur rapidly, but the organizational

foundations required to mediate conflict cannot be built at the same speed. In this sense,

reunification by absorption is not merely socially disruptive. It is structurally catastrophic

because it attempts to transplant democratic institutions without the prior conditions

necessary for their political stabilization.

This article proceeds as follows. In the second chapter, I explain why democracies in

segmented societies are vulnerable to distributive conflict and political outbidding. In the

third chapter, I turn to the conditions under which such instability may be mitigated,

focusing on organizational capacity and timing as the two key conditions that mediate

distributive conflict. In the fourth chapter, I argue that reunification by absorption

structurally removes those very conditions. In the fifth chapter, I conclude this article

with discussion and implications, referring to the German case.

The Classical Logic of Distributive Conflict

Theoretical Logic

A useful starting point for thinking about Korean reunification is the classic insight that

democratic instability often emerges not from the absence of elections, but from the

political consequences of distributive conflict in a divided society. In such settings, the

transition to a new regime changes the very structure of political life (Rabushka and

Shepsle, 1972; Horowitz 1985; Gerring et al., 2018) Groups that had previously

cooperated under a shared external constraint now face one another as rivals over scarce

political resources. What had once been organized around a broad common purpose—

Korean reunification—becomes a struggle over allocation. In that sense, regime change

is a shift from one political game to another.

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This logic is especially relevant to reunification by absorption. Prior to reunification, both

Koreas may speak in the language of national unity, historical continuity, or eventual

integration. Yet once reunification occurs under asymmetric conditions, those themes are

likely to lose their integrative force. More immediate questions will move to the center of

politics. Who bears the fiscal burden of integration? Who controls the security apparatus?

Which actors are punished, excluded, or protected? How is representation redistributed

across the former divide?

These are not secondary issues. Any political organization that attempts to accommodate

divergent distributive preferences across the former divide—hereafter, a coalition—would

struggle to manage these issues under conditions of scarce distributive resources

(Rabushka and Shepsle, 1972). The problem is that such issues constitute the substance

of post-unification politics. Once such issues become salient, democratic competition may

be organized less around abstract constitutional ideals than around distributive demands

(Horowitz, 1985).

These demands are inherently difficult to reconcile. In a newly unified polity, the

resources available for representation are finite. A settlement that satisfies one side will

be read by another side as a direct loss. Under these conditions, broad national agendas

are fragile. They may temporarily coexist with group-specific claims. General appeals to

integration, growth, or democratic reconstruction cannot easily override conflicts rooted

in everyday material interests and collective insecurity.

This creates a second problem. Coalitions formed under one political context tend to

become oversized once that context disappears. (e.g,, Riker, 1962). A broad alliance may

be useful when groups face a common threat or when political legitimacy depends on

maximal inclusion. After regime change, however, such coalitions become harder to

sustain. Political actors now require a coalition large enough to win and govern. Once

that threshold is lowered, the incentives to retain peripheral or costly partners decline

(Dunning and Harrison, 2010; Selway, 2011)

This is one reason why post-transition democracies in divided societies so often struggle

to remain inclusive. This dynamic also creates opportunities for political entrepreneurs.

Even if a temporary compromise exists, actors outside the governing center would have

incentives to magnify the importance of group-specific grievances (Rabushka and

Shepsle, 1972; Bormann et al., 2017)

In the Korean case, this dynamic could emerge on both sides of the former divide. In the

South, political actors may mobilize against perceived concessions to the North. In the

North, actors may frame any asymmetrical settlement as subordination. Once such

outbidding begins, moderate positions become increasingly difficult to sustain.

The central risk of reunification by absorption is that it would politicize distributive conflict

in a setting where electoral competition may reward communal appeals. In this sense,

democratic instability is a structural possibility generated by the interaction of group-

based claims.

Existing theories of ethnic conflict capture this dynamic well (e.g., Horowitz 1985;

Bormann et al., 2017; Gerring et al., 2018). The Korean case is relevant because long-

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term partition has produced distinct political communities across the former divide.

(Kwon and Park, 2019).

Formal Intuition

The same argument may be clarified through a simple spatial and expected-utility

framework. Consider three communities, A, B, and C, each with an ideal outcome that

maximizes its own collective interest The three actors may be understood as representing

hardline and moderate positions across the former divide. The set of possible political

outcomes can then be represented as a triangular strategy space whose vertices denote

the realization of each group’s preference. Intermediate points represent compromise

outcomes.

Figure 1. Strategic Space of Three Communal Actors

Figure 1 illustrates this strategic space. As in the original formulation, the point of the

figure shows that compromise is intrinsically unstable when one group expects that

democratic competition can move outcomes closer to its own ideal point. In the Korean

setting, the intuition is easy to see. South Korean actors may prefer an intermediate

arrangement in the abstract, but if they expect electoral competition to reward a harder

line, they have little reason to remain at the center.

The same applies to North Korean actors who expect their survival or protection to

depend on sharper communal mobilization. Under these conditions, the middle ground

exists conceptually, but it lacks political security.

This instability becomes clearer considering the intensity of preferences. In divided

settings, political actors do not merely rank outcomes differently. They also care about

them with unusual intensity. This is crucial because strong preference intensity is tied to

attitudes toward risk. If South or North Korean actor value distributive outcomes as

matters of collective survival, then uncertain but potentially larger gains may be

preferred to safer but moderate bargains. This logic may be summarized as follow;

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Figure 2. Utility Functions reflecting Risk-Acceptant and Risk-Averse Preferences

In that case, actors become willing to gamble for more extreme outcomes.

Figure 2 captures this intuition through utility curves. When utility is convex, actors

display risk-acceptant behavior and prefer “all-or-nothing” political strategies. When

utility is concave, actors are more risk-averse and willing to accept secure compromise.

The significance of the figure for this article is direct. Reunification by absorption is likely

to generate the first configuration.

Questions of punishment, property, welfare or security are the daily issues that make

collective preferences intense and non-compromising. Finally, electoral politics may

encourage risky escalation rather than moderation.

Once these assumptions are combined, democratic instability follows from the logic of

political competition itself. Suppose a candidate representing either of North or South

Korea proposes a moderate position that includes some concessions to the other side. A

rival from within the same divide may attack that position as insufficiently protective of

the group’s core interests and move closer to the group’s ideal point.

In either of Korea, this harder line may defeat the moderate alternative even when the

latter is more broadly acceptable. The result is a pattern of outbidding. Moderates are

vulnerable as hardline competitors exploit communal fears within majoritarian politics.

This means that even actors who seek gradual accommodation may be punished by those

who promise stronger protection for “their side.”

Democratic procedures can be destabilized when group-based distributive conflicts

become politically salient. This is the political context in which reunification by absorption

must be understood. The Korean problem is the extension of democratic institutions into

an environment already primed for distributive conflict.

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Containing Distributive Conflicts

Distributive conflict becomes politically destabilizing when no institution exists to mediate

it before it hardens into antagonistic politics. Classical pessimism, however, has

important limits. If distributive conflict alone were enough to explain democratic failure,

then all divided post-transition polities would unravel in the same way. However, some

do not. Some of them manage to preserve a larger political framework long enough to

contain those pressures.

Power-sharing institutions such as federalism or consociationalism may be attractive, but

they do not implement themselves (Anderson, 2016; Christin and Hug, 2012; Brancati,

2006) The problem is not only which institutional arrangement would work, but who has

the incentive to establish it before conflict becomes fully polarized (Ordeshook and

Shvetsova, 1994; Kunicová and Rose-Ackerman, 2005). Any institutional reform requires

political actors who expect to benefit from it and who possess the capacity to sideline

both internal outbidders and external entrepreneurs.

An organized coalition of moderate actors across the former divide would be the relevant

carrier of reform (Bormann et al., 2019; Strøm et al., 2017). Such a coalition matters

because it connects northern and southern actors within a larger political framework and

gives them incentives to remain inside the system even when they cannot secure all of

their group-level demands. Democracy remains stable only when political loss does not

become equivalent to collective exclusion (Simonsen, 2005).

Such a coalition does not emerge endogenously. It requires organizational depth,

recognized leadership, routinized coordination, and legitimacy. They require

organizational depth, recognized leadership, routinized coordination, and legitimacy to

persuade actors that future gains inside the system is preferable to immediate exit. That

is why democratic stabilization depends not merely on formal rules, but on the prior

existence of organized coalition committed to a shared political goal.

The problem is as much temporal as it is institutional. The coalition must survive long

enough to contain conflict before it becomes fully polarized. Once that threshold has been

crossed, institutional reform is less likely to restore stability, whichever it takes form of

federalism, consociationalism, or other power-sharing arrangements.

Thus, the functioning of power-sharing institutional reform requires two minimum

conditions. The first condition is timing. Institutional reform led by the coalition needs to

be implemented as early as possible, because reforms are most effective when they are

introduced before political competition has been reorganized around communal demands.

Once communal demands become the dominant political agenda, actors on both sides of

the former divide have less reason to remain within the coalition.

The importance of early conflict-mediating reform can be demonstrated as follows. For

any actor B, remaining within the coalition must be more beneficial than the expected

compensation from leaving it. This can be stated as:

g × δ ≥ (1 − g) × C

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δ denotes the actual share received by the minority within the institution, such as

perceived access to cabinet positions, budgetary resources, or policy influence. C denotes

the cost of acting outside the coalition, such as state enforcement capacity, punishment,

or organizational costs. Finally, g denotes the weight voters place on “our group’s share,”

that is, the relative importance of identity benefits compared to the conservative value

of remaining in power.

In this case, the repeated expected utility of B, given a discount factor for future value

(0<β<1) is,

Here, is the share received within the coalition at time 𝑡 and is the cost of exiting

the coalition.

If power-sharing reform occurs at time τ, then for all t > τ,

permanently change. The present value of the gain in utility generated by reform is

therefore:

If we accept the assumption that power-sharing institutional reform is generally

advantageous to minority groups (mostly North Korea actors), then

> 0

is the sum of a geometric series beginning at t=τ, and since β<1, this

expression is maximized when τ takes its minimum value.

However, if the value of at the initial point t < 0 is sufficiently negative, then even

may still remain negative.

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An attempt at power-sharing reform will fail no matter how early it is undertaken. This

provides a clue as to why many coalitions, despite having sufficient incentive to attempt

the reform, nonetheless failed to institutionalize it in time.

Power-sharing institutions created by reform must be able to manage the communal

demands within it until the institutionalization is completed. To do so, the coalition must

be organized to manage that transition. Although the concept of organizational strength

remains theoretically underdeveloped (Borz and Janda, 2018), Olson (1962)

conceptualizes it as a group sustained by successful collective action.

Both northern and southern communities have incentives to free-ride by prioritizing their

own communal agendas, but the extent to which the organization minimizes that

possibility indicates its degree of strength. Rabushka and Shepsle (1972) view that

communal demands as the factor that fatally undermines collective action and causes

the organization to collapse within a short period.

The proof regarding organizational strength is determined by the interaction of the

following three functions. For the organizational strength of the institution; O∈[0,1]

1. k(O) denotes the cost of exiting the coalition, where κ′(O) ≥ 0.

2. denotes the actual share that B receives within the current coalition,

where

3. denotes the incentive offered to B by an alternative coalition, where

The reason the derivative of is negative is that, as O increases, the expected share

that an alternative coalition can offer to B is assumed to decline.

In this case, the retention condition in terms of repeated present value is:

Define

Then its derivative is:

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As a result, G(O) increases as O increases. In other words, the stronger the organizational

capacity of the coalition, the lower the incentive to exit under otherwise identical

conditions. At the same time, this also acts as a factor that reduces the negativity of .

Why Absorption Eliminates These Conditions

The political consequences depend on whether institutional reforms can emerge early

enough and whether they are backed by the organized coalition (Bormann et al., 2019;

Strøm et al., 2017). Reunification by absorption, however, is precisely the process in

which both conditions are structurally undermined. This is not simply because absorption

produces asymmetry between North and South Korea. The danger lies in attempting to

establish a democratic order without the conditions necessary for it to function.

First, absorption eliminates the condition of timing. The institutional reform must be

undertaken before nationwide issues are displaced by communal demands (Horowitz,

1985; 1993). Once distributive conflict has already hardened, the reform no longer works

as a preventive mechanism. The earlier the intervention, the greater its present value

for actors deciding whether to remain within the system. The later it comes, the less

capable it is of altering their incentives.

Reunification by absorption eliminates precisely this condition. It does so because it

presupposes that political incorporation must occur rapidly, often under conditions of

collapse or abrupt institutional vacuum. In such a setting, the extension of South Korean

law would likely be treated as urgent and non-negotiable.

This ensures that the implementation of reform arrives too late. Institutions capable of

translating conflict into manageable bargaining cannot be built at the same speed as the

regime transition by itself. While such institutions require time to organize, absorption

compresses that time. What disappears is, therefore, the temporal window in which

mediation could still function preventively.

That delay directly lowers the expected value of remaining within the new order for every

actor. In the language of the earlier model, the relevant issue is whether the perceived

share of participation exceeds the expected value of acting outside the coalition.

However, that condition becomes harder to satisfy when the benefits of participation

remain uncertain while the costs of exposure are immediate. North Korean actors facing

immediate uncertainty cannot be expected to value a future promise of inclusion as highly

as a present guarantee.

The second problem is the coalition’s organizational capacity. Even a reform introduced

early, it may fail if the coalition is insufficiently organized to lead the process until its

complete implementation. The argument is that strong organizations raise the cost of

exit, increase the benefits of remaining within the coalition, and reduce the attractiveness

of alternative alignments. As organizational capacity rises, actors are less likely to defect

under otherwise identical distributive pressures.

Absorption removes this condition at its source. The coalition would have to connect

actors across the former divide. However, such an organized coalition cannot arise

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spontaneously. It cannot be improvised by constitutional declaration alone, nor can it be

assumed to exist simply because one side already has functioning institutions. South

Korea possesses a democratic state, but that does not mean it possesses a political actor

capable of mediating conflict across the former North–South divide.

Instead, the sudden extension of South Korea’s democratic rules intensifies the risk that

distributive conflict will be interpreted in communal terms. This distinction is essential.

In ordinary discussions of unification, South Korea’s institutional strength is often treated

as an advantage that would smooth the transition. The stronger the preexisting South

Korean state, the easier it becomes to extend democratic rules downward from the top.

South Korean actors may mobilize against perceived privileges granted to northern

communities. On the other hand, North Korean actors may interpret unequal

incorporation as evidence that the new order is a structure of domination.

Such conflict is politically difficult to avoid. This does not necessarily mean that conflict

will always take the form of open violence or regime breakdown. The claim is narrower

but still severe. It is that the issues most likely to define early post-unification politics—

property rights, taxation, security, representation, punishment, and administrative

authority—are all distributive in character, and that absorption deprives the new regime

of the institutions that might otherwise contain them.

Reunification by absorption should be understood as politically catastrophic. It converts

that divide into a new distributive struggle inside a formally democratic order. The result

is the institutionalization of conflict without the prior means to manage it. In that precise

sense, absorption is catastrophic by design.

Why Germany Is Not a Benchmark for Korea

This article argues that reunification by absorption would produce a highly unstable path

to democratic integration in Korea. The main problem is political. Democratic institutions

cannot stabilize themselves where distributive conflict is immediate and institutions of

mediation are absent. This is because post-unification Korea would not be the simple

restoration of a unified nation-state. Under these conditions, the earliest politics of

unification would be distributive.

In this situation, welfare, punishment, representation, taxation, employment, and

security would shape the regime from the start. Elections and party competition would

not moderate these conflicts. Instead, they would be vehicles for mobilizing actors on

both sides of the former divide. The extension of South Korea’s existing institutions would

still be unable to accommodate each community’s interests at once. Given the salience

of institutional rules for distributive resources, the likely result would be political

outbidding and the communalization of distributive claims.

German unification should not be treated as a benchmark for Korea (Shin and Jeong,

2020; Vogel and Best, 2016). This analogy obscures the mechanism at the center of this

article. Emphasizing Germany’s success shifts attention toward institutional superiority,

administrative integration, and fiscal burden, but these are not the core issues. The key

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question is whether democratic institutions remain governable when distributive conflict

becomes salient. I am highly skeptical of the possibility.

An uncritical comparison to Germany hinders productive discussion. It privileges

outcomes over mechanisms. While it highlights successful institutional extension, it

sidelines the question of who would mediate distributive conflict between North and

South Korea. South Korea clearly possesses established democratic institutions and may

be the actor that would extend them to the North. However, those institutions are less

likely to mediate the distributive conflicts that absorption would immediately politicize.

Moreover, Germany itself was not a case of coalition-free success. East Germany

experienced roundtable politics and held elections during the transition. Although West

German parties and administrative institutions quickly entered the East, they also

provided the organizational capacity necessary to sustain coalition-building (Vogel and

Best, 2016), including the incorporation of political moderates on both sides. East

German society likewise contained churches, civic groups, and emerging associations

(Shin and Jeong, 2020). Its unification remained governable in part because brokerage

functions were already present.

Germany was therefore an exceptional case. It cannot serve as a model for Korea. Its

relative stability rested on conditions prior to institutional transfer itself. The scenario of

reunification by absorption lacks the conditions that Germany enjoyed. It would compress

the timing of incorporation, weaken prior mediation, and expose vulnerable actors before

the organized coalition has time to emerge. Given this difference, the German case

reinforces the importance of prior political organization.

The broader implication is conceptual as well as empirical. Korean unification should not

be approached only through the language of national restoration. It should also be

analyzed as a problem of democratic stability under severe distributive conflict. A unified

Korea cannot be presumed politically homogeneous because it remains nationally

continuous. It should instead be examined as a conflictual order in which group-based

claims may acquire a quasi-ethnic character.

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JANUS.NET, e-journal of International Relations

e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL. 17 Nº. 1, TD 1

Thematic Dossier – The Korean Peninsula in a Global Context: Security, Culture, and

Transnational Perspectives

June 2026, pp. 115-129

Yes, Reunification by Absorption Would be a Catastrophe for Korea

Jongho Park

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