Socializing states into a rules-based international order: converging narratives between South Korea and the EU

To what extent do South Korean narratives of global order converge or diverge with views from the European Union? Although the threat of communist North Korea during the Cold War led South Korean leaders to perpetuate illiberal practices at home, the country’s rapid economic development in the 1970s and democratic transition in the 1980s incentivized South Korean policymakers to turn toward multilateral institutions, economic openness, and liberal internationalism. Embracing the narrative of the liberal international order was not automatic, however, but involved a gradual process of socialization with other liberal actors, most notably the United States, but also the European Union. Drawing from the constructivist literature on institutionalization and evidence from South Korean official documents, speeches, and statements, we trace South Korea’s socialization into the liberal international order as manifest in its own identity narrative as a global, cosmopolitan nation. Moving forward, greater alignment between the EU and democratic Asian countries will be seen by both sets of actors as critical in the battle of global narratives and order contestation.