This paper explains the origins of Korea’s political conservatism by examining the emergence and transformation process of ilminism, the governing ideology of the First Republic of Korea (1948–1960). Ilminism was a nationalistic ideology that emphasized the needs and security of the state over those of individuals and classes, and advocated development through the vehicle of a socialist controlled economy, to develop and protect the nation and the state.

The First Republic emerged as the tensions of the Cold War were intensifying in the Korean Peninsula. Under the rule of the US-supported military government, as right-leaning factions gained ground over the left in the struggle over sovereignty, leftist ideologies all but disappeared in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. Ultimately, the confrontation between “communism” and “liberalism” was recast as one between “communism” and “anti-communist nationalism,” with three main results. First, the surplus of nationalism and the lack of other ideologies transformed the Cold War confrontation in the region after the liberation, engendering a right-leaning bias in the ideological space of Korean politics. Second, the political establishment mobilized nationalism to maintain the status quo. Third, the dominance of nationalism has inhibited the emergence of liberalism. This process has formed the foundations of Korean political conservatism, wherein the dogmatism of nationalism imposes the notoriety of “anti-communist nationalism” on all diverging ideologies, including liberalism. Therefore, contrary to conventional views that trace southern anti-communist nationalism only to the Korean War, this paper connects the phenomenon to the political dynamics that emerged during the First Republic of Korea.

American alliance system in Asia is characterized as a unique bundle of bilateral alliances, different from the multilateral collective defense organization in Europe. Why is there no NATO in Asia? To answer the question, scholars in the field of diplomatic history and international relations have debated diverse aspects of the system and its origins. Diplomatic historians tend to focus on the legacy of historical experiences of war and colonization in the form of deep mistrust and suspicion of the regional states against Japan in the postwar Asia-Pacific. While neo-realists emphasize the structural factors such as distribution of power and power gap among regional states, constructivists look to collective identities and norms such as sovereignty and non-intervention.

Agreeing with major findings of historical studies, this article aims to introduce a logical and theoretical framework to put actions and reactions taken by the reginal states, with a focus on Syngman Rhee’s South Korea, vis-à-vis the American design to form regional alliance system in a broader perspective. Usually, President Rhee’s anti-Communist and anti-Japanese policies are described as emotional and irrational. This article suggests that his aggressive Cold War policy was in close coalition with “rollbackers” in the US. By focusing on the structure, this article intends to shed a new light on the interaction between anti-communist and anti-Japanese policies during Rhee administration.