Dueling nationalisms in North and South Korea

Are frequent appeals to autonomy and self-reliance by political leaders indicative of strong North and South Korean nationalism? As divided nations that have experienced colonization and Cold War intervention, North and South Korea are described as having particularly nationalistic tendencies, exemplified by the extreme ideology of self-reliance in North Korea and episodes of anti-Japanism and anti-Americanism in South Korea. But often ignored in existing structural or cultural deterministic accounts is the other side of “Great Power” nationalism in both Koreas—that is, the desire to become advanced nations themselves by emulating the success of Great Powers. The argument presented here is that such an outward-looking nationalism is also a shared source of Korean foreign policy and has become a source of domestic legitimacy battles, during which weakened leaders turn to greater autonomy to bolster their political positions. Through a comparative examination of the evolution of juche in North Korea, which began as a reaction to perceived Soviet interference in the mid-1950s, and the development of anti-sadae (Great-Power revering) thought in postwar South Korea, this article attempts to explain the role of Great Powers in, as well as identify the patterns of, domestic legitimacy contestation in Korean foreign policy.