ABSTRACT
The Introduction opens with an illustration of the main research problem of how South Korean international state identity relates to Seoul’s global foreign policy in the early 21st century. South Korea was usually seen as a “shrimp amongst whales,” a minor player with limited agency in regional and global affairs. Korea’s raised status as a middle power today, however, begs the question about related changes in the South Korean identity or sense of self in the world. This is followed by a demonstration of the need for an agency-oriented account of international state identity. The lack of comprehensive assessments of the international state identity of South Korea as an emerging global power as well as the gap in conceptual and agency-oriented approaches to the state identity of South Korea as an international actor are briefly discussed at this point. Subsequently, the identity conceptualization and methodological model developed here, as well as the main argument of the book about South Korea’s dominant practices of self-identification in the two selected foreign policy discourses, are offered as answers to the raised research questions.
