Between Neoliberalism and Democracy: The Transformation of the Developmental State in South Korea (original) (raw)
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The Developmental Sources of South Korean Neoliberalism
Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2021
How do South Korea’s developmental legacies influence its contemporary political economy? The discourse surrounding this question has tended to diverge over the extent to which South Korea’s state-led developmental model has been supplanted by a market-led, neoliberal mode of political-economic organization. Though this debate has indeed fostered many important individual contributions, it has also yielded a muddled and ambiguous theoretical landscape. To clarify this cluttered terrain, this paper draws from recent advances in the study of neoliberalism to establish critical points of consonance between statist perspectives on Korean development and neoliberalism. To this end, it identifies key threads of continuity binding South Korea’s developmental past with its neoliberal present. The paper finds that critical aspects of the developmental state’s interaction with society, from coercion to ideological suasion, furnished elemental building blocks to those actively constructing a South Korean neoliberalism. Thus, exploring these historical contours produces a fresh means for apprehending the interactions of enduring statist developmental legacies with contemporary neoliberal reforms, both theoretically and empirically. As such, this study yields an improved set of conceptual tools for grasping the complex empirical phenomena shaping the interplay of neoliberalism, developmentalism, and democracy within contemporary South Korea.
Neoliberalism, the Developmental State and Civil Society in Korea
Asian Studies Review, 2015
Following the Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s, some scholars predicted that the introduction of neoliberal ideas and policies would result in the definitive passing of the Korean developmental state. Despite these predictions, Korean state elites have retained their influential position as economic managers by, for instance, practising a revised form of industrial policy. Neoliberal reform has, however, had significant social implications. Rather than neoliberalism acting as a democratising force that curtails the power of the state, this article illustrates that the Korean state has used the reform agenda to justify an expansion of its powers. The state presented itself as an agent capable of resolving longstanding economic problems, and of defending law and order. By doing so, the state reduced the political space available to non-state actors. The article concludes that for some states, neoliberalism is a means of retaining economic and political influence, and that former developmental states may be particularly adept at co-opting elements of civil society into governing alliances.
2004
The entire process of Korean economic development in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s demonstrated the possibility of economic development in the third world. The 1997 financial crisis led many to affirm that the Korean state had lost its ability to deal with domestic economic and welfare policies. Using Cerny's three "shifts" in the character and nature of the welfare state, this paper examines changes in the Korean state after the economic crisis and assess whether globalization and neo-liberal economic restructuring have resulted in the emergence of a new type of state in Korea. The results suggest that although globalization undermines the economic and political conditions on which the developmental state was based, there is no indication that the developmental interventionist state, which had been a crucial feature of Korea's industrialized process over the past few decades, has actually weakened. Rather, as compared with previous regimes, the state has become more...
2004
Transformation of the South Korean State: Structural Changes of the State after the 1997 Financial Crisis The entire process of Korean economic development in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s demonstrated the possibility of economic development in the third world. The 1997 financial crisis led many to affirm that the Korean state had lost its ability to deal with domestic economic and welfare policies. Using Cerny's three "shifts" in the character and nature of the welfare state, this paper examines changes in the Korean state after the economic crisis and assesses whether globalization and neo-liberal economic restructuring have resulted in the emergence of a new type of state in Korea. The results suggest that although globalization undermines the economic and political conditions on which the developmental state was based, there is no indication that the developmental interventionist state, which had been a crucial feature of Korea's industrialization process over the past few decades, has actually weakened. Rather, as compared with previous regimes, the state has become more powerful and more interventionist. Despite a convergence in national economic policies toward the economic paradigm of the competition state, there are still unique domestic responses to globalization according to different national economic ideologies and past practices.
A political-economic analysis of the failure of neo-liberal restructuring in post-crisis Korea
Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2002
This paper evaluates IMF-led neoliberal restructuring in post-crisis Korea. The main conclusions are: the economic rebound in 1999-2000 was both incomplete and unsustainable; restructuring created a ongoing credit crunch that continues to constrain investment spending; Korea may have been pushed onto a long-term low-investment, low-growth trajectory; insecurity and inequality have risen substantially; and the influence of foreign capital has dramatically increased. The paper concludes by suggesting that Koreans should reject radical neoliberal restructuring and consider instead reforms to democratize and modernize their traditional state-guided growth model.
The Transformation of the Developmental State and Economic Reform in Korea
This paper analyses the political economy of economic reform and the ways in which the characteristics of developmental states have been changed in this reform process. It does this with attention to the experience of structural transformation in the manufacturing, information technology and financial sectors in Korea. Using the coalition theory of policy reform, the main finding from these cases is that the relationships among politicians, bureaucrats and interest groups have been altered so that interest groups' power has been strengthened compared to politicians and bureaucrats. Although a crisis is important in promoting economic reform, broaderranging trends, such as democratisation, globalisation and technological progress, have also been important fundamental forces. Even with change, the reform process in Korea continues to reflect the legacies of the developmental state, with the state still playing an important role in planning, implementing and sustaining economic reform.