Research Forum

Most scholars and pundits usually take for granted that Korea-Japan relations are peculiar in the sense that the dominant effect of historical animosity distorts their relations so much that no IR theory can explain their relations properly. This observation is neither theoretically nor empirically well-founded. The scholarship on Korea-Japan relations is largely divided into the two schools: the historical animosity school and the Realist school. However, this tendency for dichotomization itself prevents researchers from grasping reality. In fact, historical animosity is inseparably intertwined with Realpolitik consideration. Therefore, Korea-Japan relations are explainable in terms of Realism as broadly understood.