This cluster aims to comprehensively examine domestic and international scholarly debates on the statehood of modern and contemporary Korea, and to elucidate the unique historical and sociopolitical characteristics of the Korean state. Due to the geopolitical conditions of the Korean Peninsula, international politics has not merely been a part of Korea’s modern history but has rather constituted one of its most decisive shaping forces.
With this awareness, the cluster analyzes the formation and transformation of Korea’s statehood within the broader structural changes of the East Asian international order—from the traditional Sino-centric world order to the modern imperial system, and further into the Cold War and post-Cold War periods. Through concepts such as tributary state, colonial state and resistant nationalism, divided system, anti-communist state, and patriarchal state, this project seeks to reconstruct new theoretical perspectives on Korea’s statehood and its historical foundations.