Korea and Germany as Divided Nations: The Systemic Impact

Abstract

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF nations has hardly begun. We are not even sure whether to apply to them the terms divided or partitioned, or whether there is, or should be, such difference in terminology.' The dearth of such studies is no coincidence. In an age of nationalism, the opposite and so much more conspicuous phenomenon of the emergence of ever more nation-states outweighs the exceptional phenomenon of nations not forming integrated political entities -i.e., states. Or does it? If we look closer at our world of nations, examples of division seem to multiply. India (if we start from the integrated entity it was under British control); Ireland, if, again, we start from the unit it once constituted; China, if we still consider Taiwan as forming, nationally, an integrated part of it. Yet, the three that come to mind first of all, Germany, Korea, and Vietnam, seem to have something in common which the others lack. We do not speak-at least in the political sense-of East and West India, hardly of North and South Ireland. But East and West Germany, North and South Korea, North and South Vietnam come naturally. I believe there is a reason for it. A great variety of diverse events have caused the divisions outside these three, and a comparative study of their causes seems to hold little promise. But the three last-named ones do have something in common. Everyone assumes that, were they not found on opposite sides of what was once called the Iron Curtain