ABSTRACT
In South Korea, multiculturalism or multicultural policy is often seen as little more than a state-dominated effort to control and manage increasing ethnic diversity, primarily to serve the developmental needs of the country. This view is not necessarily wrong but is based on the faulty premise that policy is determined solely by material power and interests. This chapter, however, contends that the conventional “power interest” explanation ignores the centrality of ideas and discourse. The “idea” of ethnic homogeneity, in particular, played an instrumental role in constructing an exclusionary Korean identity in the first place. Thus, the existence of an alternative idea – i.e., “multiculturalism” – has the potential to reshape that identity by introducing a hitherto missing cultural logic into Korean society. The introduction of a new cultural logic will not necessarily lead to the collapse of the homogenous nation-state in South Korea, but it is a crucial step.
