Jeju Peace Institute

Since the end of the Cold War, the international community has striven to build partnership relations that can facilitate cooperation among nations in diverse agenda items related to an increasing number of fields as opposed to the traditional approach based on alliance designed to promote security in military terms.

South Korea responds to the demand of the times by actively seeking strategic partnership relations with other nations.

Against such backdrop, this paper would like to present the reinterpretation of partnership relations including its understanding, analysis, and response from a constructivist’s perspective.

In this paper, the author would like to argue that differences in national interests should not always be construed as the cause of conflicts across borders as claimed by traditional positivists and that, in contrast, inter-subjective, epistemological approaches to the issue can offer new possibilities.

Taking such hypothesis into account, the author would like to add that the partnership relations that South Korea must continue to pursue need to be shifted to a direction wherein those types of international relations will contribute not only to the expansion of its own national interests but also to the enhancement of overall global peace and prosperity, and that, as a result, significant policy implications can be sought in those types of diplomatic efforts.