Assuming you’re talking about geopolitics, “the West” is colloquially used to refer to the imperialist countries, most of which are located in the “western half” (arbitrary, of course), but it doesn’t include South America or the western part of Africa, and it does include Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Occupied Korea, all of which are in the “eastern half”. “Global north” might be a better alternative but it’s not completely accurate
I always assumed that they aren’t, in the same easy that Australia is.
Any country is part of the west as long as it serves the imperial core, but will be discarded as soon as they are no longer needed
It’s simple really. Latin Americans are taught that they are part of the West and feel Western.
Europeans say lol no.
To add on a little bit further, the definition doesn’t come first as in the case of North America for example. The definition of Western is made post-hoc to describe an emotion and sense of belonging. Europeans feel it among each other and don’t feel it towards Latin Americans. Latin Americans feel it towards each other and towards Europeans.
There can be no objective criteria to judge the answer, so there is no objective answer.
As an adjacent narrative, I can and will claim that Japan is Western and there is nothing you can do to disprove it.
No lol.
