Introduction to “Right-Wing Activism in Asia: Cold War Legacies, Geopolitics, and Democratic Erosion”

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-310
Author(s):  
Yoonkyung Lee
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Far Right ◽  
The Cold War

This essay introduces four articles that form a special issue of Politics & Society titled “Right-Wing Activism in Asia: Cold War Legacies, Geopolitics, and Democratic Erosion.” The articles focus on Japan, South Korea, and Thailand. These three Asian countries present important cases to generate critical comparative insights about the patterns of Far Right mobilization, for their geopolitical histories provide common ground while institutional variations set distinctive conditions. Most importantly, all of them were shaped by the particularly sharp conflicts of the Cold War in the region, and the articles in this issue demonstrate how this legacy has generated illiberal conditions in these countries today.

Magic and Politics

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 5-14
Author(s):  
Sabina Magliocco
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
The United States ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Cultural Expression ◽  
Spirit World

This essay introduces a special issue of Nova Religio on magic and politics in the United States in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election. The articles in this issue address a gap in the literature examining intersections of religion, magic, and politics in contemporary North America. They approach political magic as an essentially religious phenomenon, in that it deals with the spirit world and attempts to motivate human behavior through the use of symbols. Covering a range of practices from the far right to the far left, the articles argue against prevailing scholarly treatments of the use of esoteric technologies as a predominantly right-wing phenomenon, showing how they have also been operationalized by the left in recent history. They showcase the creativity of magic as a form of human cultural expression, and demonstrate how magic coexists with rationality in contemporary western settings.

The Specter of the Past: Reconstructing Conservative Historical Memory in South Korea

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-362
Author(s):  
Myungji Yang
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
New Right ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Far Right ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Right

Through the case of the New Right movement in South Korea in the early 2000s, this article explores how history has become a battleground on which the Right tried to regain its political legitimacy in the postauthoritarian context. Analyzing disputes over historiography in recent decades, this article argues that conservative intellectuals—academics, journalists, and writers—play a pivotal role in constructing conservative historical narratives and building an identity for right-wing movements. By contesting what they viewed as “distorted” leftist views and promoting national pride, New Right intellectuals positioned themselves as the guardians of “liberal democracy” in the Republic of Korea. Existing studies of the Far Right pay little attention to intellectual circles and their engagement in civil society. By examining how right-wing intellectuals appropriated the past and shaped triumphalist national imagery, this study aims to better understand the dynamics of ideational contestation and knowledge production in Far Right activism.

East Asia at the Crossroads of Cooperation and Rivalry at the Regional and International Levels: Editorial Introduction

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-214
Author(s):  
Anna V. Kuteleva ◽  
Denis A. Shcherbakov
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Dynamic Process ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Regional Politics ◽  
Economic Revitalization ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
International Status ◽  
Foreign Policy Strategies

The rise of new powers throughout the 2000s and the 2010s augurs the end of the unipolar system that has persisted since the end of the Cold War. In no region is this transition more compelling than in East Asia. Economic revitalization of this region and a steady redistribution of power related to it is a dynamic process characterized by intense changes in foreign policy strategies, practices, and orientations of China, Korea, and Japan. The proposed special issue seeks to critically assess the emerging developments of Chinas, Japans, and Koreas core international perceptions and policies. More specifically, the special issue addresses two complex and interrelated questions. Firstly, how do China, Korea, and Japan adapt to the changing international landscape? Secondly, how do China, Korea, and Japan respond to the challenges inherent to the pursuit of the enhanced international status? The contributions to this special issue aim at scrutinizing Chinas cybersovereignty and industrial policy; exploring the strengths and limitations of Koreas public diplomacy; and examining Japans contributions to regionalism. The special issue also discusses Russias relations with East Asia and its role in regional politics.

Transcending the Past: Singing and the Lingering Cold War in the Korean Christian Diaspora

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
HYUN KYONG HANNAH CHANG
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Choral Music ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
The United States ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Identity And Agency ◽  
Protestant Christianity ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract Protestant music in South Korea has received little attention in ethnomusicology despite the fact that Protestant Christianity was one of the most popular religions in twentieth-century Korea. This has meant a missed opportunity to consider the musical impact of a religious institution that mediated translocal experiences between South Korea and the United States during the Cold War period (1950s–1980s). This article explores the politics of music style in South Korean diasporic churches through an ethnography of a church choir in California. I document these singers’ preference for European-style choral music over neotraditional pieces that incorporate the aesthetics of suffering from certain Korean traditional genres. I argue that their musical judgement must be understood in the context of their lived and remembered experience of power inequalities between the United States and South Korea. Based on my interviews with the singers, I show that they understand hymns and related Euro-American genres as healing practices that helped them overcome a difficult past and hear traditional vocal music as sonic icons of Korea's sad past. The article outlines a pervasive South Korean/Korean diasporic historical consciousness that challenges easy conceptions of identity and agency in music studies.

Ideology Was A Uniform to Be Taken On and Off: An Anti-Communist Prisoner’s Survival from Manchuria to Korea to India

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-306
Author(s):  
Sunwoo Lee
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil War ◽  
South Korea ◽  
United Nations ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Republic Of Korea ◽  
Prisoner Of War ◽  
Japanese Occupation ◽  
Chinese Civil War ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract Chi Ki-ch’ŏl’s story reveals a man not driven by ideology, but buffeted by it. He began adulthood as a Korean exile in Manchuria, where the Japanese occupation army conscripted him. After Japan’s defeat in August 1945, he joined a Korean contingent of the Chinese Communist Army and fought in the Chinese Civil War. His unit later repatriated to North Korea, where it joined the invasion of South Korea on 25 June 1950. When U.S.-led forces of the United Nations shattered that invasion in September, he quickly arranged to surrender to U.S. troops. While in custody, Chi worked with Republic of Korea (rok) intelligence to organize prisoner of war (pow) resistance to their being returned to North Korea after the impending armistice. He enjoyed privileges as an anti-Communist in the pow camps, and hoped it would continue. Although an active anti-Communist, Chi judged that he would not be able to live in South Korea as an ex-pow. After refusing repatriation to North Korea, he also rejected staying in South Korea. But Chi would survive elsewhere. He relocated to India, where he thrived as a businessman. He chose the space of neutrality to succeed as an anti-Communist, where life nevertheless reflected the contentious energy of the Cold War. Chi’s decision demonstrated how ideology, despite its importance to him, was not sufficient to translate his rejection of Communist North Korea into a commitment to South Korea.

Interpreting Right-Wing or Reactionary Neo-Populism: A Critique

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Formisano
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Opportunity ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The Cold War

During the 1980s and 1990s in countries across the globe, new populist protest movements and radical political organizations emerged to challenge traditional parties, ruling elites, and professional politicians, and even long-standing social norms. The revolts against politics-as-usual have arisen from many kinds of social groupings and from diverse points on the political spectrum. Through the 1980s, in Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and North America, populist discontent erupted intermittently. But the end of the Cold War, particularly in Europe, unleashed a torrent of popular movements and political parties opposed to what the discontented perceived as the corruption and deceitfulness of the political classes and their corporate patrons. Some protest movements promoted more democracy, pluralism, and economic opportunity; some expressed intolerance, bigotry, and xenophobic nationalism.

The New Knight: The French Far Right’s View of the Middle Ages

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-49
Author(s):  
Stéphane François
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Political Model ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Modern Nation State ◽  
The Middle Ages

The far right has always taken an interest in the Middle Ages. For the French revolutionary far right, which shares an ideological matrix influenced by Julius Evola, fascination with the Middle Ages revolves around the image of the Holy Germanic Roman Empire as a political model for Europe opposed to the modern nation-state. The romantic image of the medieval knight also offers a watered-down way to celebrate and legitimize violence without having to allude to a taboo National Socialism. This obsession with the Middle Ages contrasts with the reality that these revolutionary far-right movements were rather pro-Arab during the Cold War decades. This shift reveals the transformation of their thinking and the new dominance of the Identitarian notion of ethnic withdrawal, with the knight as the symbol of a pure racial warrior defending his society against Muslim invasion.

Conclusion: the sword or the spirit?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jude Woodward
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
China’S Rise ◽  
Pivot To Asia ◽  
The Us ◽  
China's Rise ◽  
The Cold War

This book has considered the US decision to ‘pivot’ to Asia aiming to preserve its global primacy by containing China. Seeking to boost US influence among China’s neighbours, while painting China as a dangerous revisionist power and regional aggressor, its policy has parallels with the Cold War. But when the US embarked on its confrontation with the USSR it was at the height of its economic power. Today in courting Asian allies it has had little to offer but the power of its military machine. So while the US has made some progress in re-building its influence in the affairs of the region, it has been far from enough to stall China’s rise or to convince other Asian countries to break with China. Moreover on-going distractions in the Middle East, domestic opposition to the TPP, and other troubles mean it has not even been able to concentrate its resources on China, undermining confidence in the seriousness of its turn to Asia. As a result the US has failed to drive a decisive wedge between China and any neighbours apart from Japan and not been able to inflect its increased presence in the region into a more substantive advantage.

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