People who are interested in comparative politics really should pay more attention to South Korean domestic politics, because it really shows how much of the theories accepted as universal truths are really just path-dependent results for US and Europe.
S Korea is a unique case: it's one of the few first world countries that was not an empire, but a colony, in the early 20th century. This history makes the left-right division in Korea inverted in many ways. For example, Korea's right is more "globalist", left more "nationalist."
Realizing this is very important, because like South Korea, most of the world was not an empire, but a colony, in the early 20th century. S Korean domestic politics works like an advance lesson on the domestic politics of the world outside of US and Europe.
Looking at S Korea, for example, makes you realize how much of the "liberal" politics in US and Europe is also an offshoot of the fact that these countries used to be empires, and those politics served the ends of maintaining those empires.
This is a great example. "Nationalist" usually means something bad in the English language political discourse. "Ethno-nationalism" (민족주의) sounds even worse. But what does it mean to be an ethno-nationalist when your ethnicity was on the verge of being wiped out? https://twitter.com/hanaleeca/status/1320739991623028736
Ethno-nationalism in the hands of imperialists is the ideological tool with which to maintain their empire. ("Aryans are the ubermensch, they must rule over all others.") It is in this specific context that ethno-nationalism is considered super bad. But...
... ethno-nationalism was not the only tool for the imperialists. Imperial Japan, for example, employed "pan-Asianism". They justified their Asian empire by claiming the "Five Tribes" of Asians must stand in solidarity against the Western threat. Very globalist!
But of course, in reality, the globalism of Imperial Japan meant setting Japan as the global standard and wiping out all other cultures. Resisting this imperialist advance necessarily means adopting ethno-nationalism, insisting your culture may continue to exist independently.
This does *not* mean (in my view) there are no such things as universal values and principles. It does mean, however, there needs to be a more critical examination as to which principles are truly universal and which are context-dependent.
Tagging @alon_levy and @davidshor since the discussion with you guys yesterday made me articulate this point that was rolling around my head for some time.
Btw, this thread got you interested in South Korean politics, maybe subscribe to the TBR newsletter? :) https://twitter.com/BluRoofPolitics/status/1320861551012753408?s=19
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