ABSTRACT
This chapter presents postcolonial insights to examine the Korean Wave. It focuses on Korea's historical specificities as well as their implications for other countries that had experienced similar histories of suffering in the context of global and regional colonial/social power relations. The chapter explores the Korean Wave and the neoliberal backdrop to its development in South Korea in the 1990s. It discusses the theoretical implications of the Korean Wave for International Relations (IR). An analysis of the Korean Wave reveals a set of relations between the state and the economy, especially given South Korea's position in the tide of neoliberal globalization. 'National humiliation' flooded Korea with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout. South Korea's economic collapse raised serious questions about whether a chaebol-dominated economic model could still be viable. An unexpected byproduct of the Korean Wave is the ability to transform conflicts. The South Korean government turned to culture to repair its national manhood threatened by the Asian Financial Crisis.
