Introduction: Michael Oakeshott’s Cold War Liberalism

In most versions of its history, the Cold War ends with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. But on the Korean Peninsula, two states remain in a relationship of hostility that has resisted efforts to repair it. The North’s militarized and hereditary communist regime is the main obstacle to normal relations, eventual unity, and liberal democracy on the Peninsula. Nor is liberal democracy entirely secure even in the South, where questions persist about respect for individual rights, adherence to the rule of law, and the possible recurrence of authoritarian rule. South Korean politics is highly polarized, in part because of differences over how to manage its difficult neighbor. Cold War politics in Korea, then, is not only about relations between North and South but also about how the South can strengthen its liberal democracy while coping with a totalitarian North.