Constructing theories of East Asian international relations in Korea: Challenges and tasks

This paper reviews the field of East Asian International Relations (IR) in Korea and identifies its problems and difficulties that need to be theorized. Many Korean IR scholars have claimed that Korea or East Asia has been exposed to unique historical experiences and social/cultural contexts that set it apart from other regions, and thus, called for the development of indigenous Korean or East Asian IR theories that reflect these particularities. Although efforts have been invested to construct these theories, they have not met with success. To develop such East Asian IR theories, this paper makes three suggestions. First, the scope of East Asia needs to be defined in the field of Korean IR; second, important subjects that reflect the particularities of Korean or East Asian IR need to be identified; and third, the Korean IR community should make collective efforts to test and generalize these newly developed East Asian IR findings.