Coalitions of Major Regional States and Strategic Institutional Innovation: A South Korean Perspective

South Korea’s foreign policy choices are often constrained by internal and external factors, as well as its security dependence on the United States. Despite this, this article argues that South Korea employs strategic institutional innovation as a key coalition-building strategy to navigate great power competition, enabling it to assert agency, expand its regional and global influence, and, at times, actively shape the evolving rules and norms of the regional order. The article examines how South Korea engages in strategic institutional innovation through global anchoring, institutional layering, institutional nesting, and hybrid alignment. South Korea’s policy initiatives and normative and institutional leadership have become increasingly prominent, reflecting both its ambition and potential as an order-shaper, though several constraints remain and may limit its active engagement in strategic institutional innovation.