Mnemonic Encounters
The Construction and Persistence of International “History Wars” and the Case of Japan–South Korea Relations
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6273790 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Chris Deacon (0000-0003-1769-702X, London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 68 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Publication date | 2024-06-24 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Studies Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-8833 • E-ISSN: 1468-2478 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/isq/sqae114 |
| OpenAlex | W4401672268 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 58 |
Why does contentious history play such an outsized role in some international relationships? Why do these “history wars” endure, overriding incentives to reconcile? Despite their demonstrable importance, history wars have generally been neglected by conventional conflict and security literature; and, while scholarship concerning the international politics of memory has expanded significantly, overarching frameworks addressing these questions remain underdeveloped. In this article, drawing on theories of memory politics, relational identity and ontological security, I analyze history wars as mnemonic encounters: sites at which national identities are constructed in relation to one another through remembering and forgetting shared history. Within such encounters, history wars may arise and persist where each side's mnemonic practices involve conflicting, negative representations of the other, and such representations constitute an important element of their national identities. This occurs because the rearticulation of conflictual representations constitutes both a means by which the national community is reproduced and a defense mechanism against the ontological threat posed by the other side's counter-constructions. Illustrating this framework, I explicate the construction and persistence of Japan and South Korea's “history problem,” drawing on extensive fieldwork and a discourse analysis of over one thousand original-language texts from both countries across politics, media and culture
Aesthetics · Collective memory · Epistemology · Forgetting · Identity (music · International relations · International relations theory · Mnemonic · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Relation (database · Scholarship · Sociology · Japanese History and Culture · Korean Peninsula Historical and Political Studies · Law · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Psychology
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Memory and Power in Post-War Europe
Reconciliation as Identity Change
Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe
Ontological Security in International Relations
Memory, Trauma and World Politics
Large-group identity, international relations and psychoanalysis
East Asia’s Haunted Present
History, Memory and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe
Ethnic Nationalism in Korea
On Collective Memory
Escaping the Vicious Cycle
Remembering and Forgetting the War
Transgenerational Transmissions and Chosen Traumas
Critical Security History
Diplomacy with Memory
The Concept of Anxiety in Ontological Security Studies
Buffers, Not Bridges
The Transitional Justice and Foreign Policy Nexus
Legacies of Japanese colonialism in the rhetorical constitution of South Korean national identity
Critical situations, fundamental questions and ontological insecurity in world politics
Understanding the persistence of history-related issues in Sino–Japanese relations
Memory Politics and Ontological Security in Sino-Japanese Relations
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Brexit populism and fantasies of fulfilment
Japanese revisionists and the ‘Korea threat’
Shimane Prefecture, Tokyo and the territorial dispute over Dokdo/Takeshima
(Re)producing the ‘history problem’
The Last Closed Border of the Cold War
Case Studies
Friends, There Are No Friends? An Intimate Reframing of the International
Routinised recognition and anxiety
Containing Fear
Deconstructing Japan's Image of South Korea
Foreign Policy as Social Construction
Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research
Memory-Political Deterrence
The Politics of Emotions in International Relations
Is It Friendship? An Analysis of Contemporary German–Israeli Relations
Memory, Institutions, and the Domestic Politics of South Korean–Japanese Relations
Thick recognition
Constructivism and Identity
The Study of Discourse in International Relations
Ontological Security in World Politics
The ‘abnormal’ state
Perpetual ontological crisis
Mythscapes
Ontological (In)security and State Denial of Historical Crimes
What Is a Case Study and What Is It Good for
Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research
Lest We Forget'
Collective Memory
| Citations per year | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |