Strange bedfellows: Why right‐wing intellectuals in South Korea chose to cooperate with their country's former coloniser

Abstract

AbstractWhy and when do today's Far‐Right groups cooperate across national boundaries? This paper seeks to provide answers to these questions by examining a deviant rather than representative case: the transnational connections between right‐wing intellectuals in South Korea and Japan. Analysing the recent publication of a highly controversial and provocative book and the transnational politics around it, we emphasise the roles of right‐wing intellectuals and the processes by which divergent political interests converge in changing geopolitical and domestic political contexts. By situating Far Right activities in its broader context of shaping—colonial history, American hegemony and the confrontation with socialist regimes such as China and North Korea—this paper develops a contextual account of the transnational Far Right.