ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the findings from the previous empirical chapters and presents the main argument about how South Korean international state identity relates to Seoul’s global foreign policy. It is argued that Seoul’s global outreach in the early 21st century is mostly dominated by the objective of fostering the ROK’s international standing for maintaining national autonomy. Among the retrieved role conceptions from the case studies, one notices the presence of seemingly normatively globalist, post-Westphalian role conceptions, as well as rhetoric references to global morality or international interdependence. A closer look at the discursive linkages to the more basic level of self-images, however, leads to more traditional narratives of legitimation that prioritize sovereign autonomy and national advancement as key objectives of South Korea’s global foreign policy. It is because of the absence of a pattern of self-identification that is transcending national boundaries with a global commons-oriented or post-Westphalian globalist inclination and because of a strong focus on international standing and autonomy in the self-identification practices in the observed cases that this book concludes that South Korean international state identity is dominated by the objective to maintain national autonomy above all in a changing regional and global context.
