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This paper is a comparative study of the elite capture in Pakistan and the developmental structure in South Korea. The paper seeks to examine: why does the Pakistani state remain captured by social actors, despite similar post-colonial geopolitical trajectories of Pakistan and South Korea, failing to set up a developmental state and transform into an Asian tiger? On the other hand, South Korea was able to become a developmental state and achieved high rates of social and economic growth, uplifting the living standards of the vast majority of its population. It identifies social structure and conflicting elite interest as twin independent variables explaining the divergent (outcome) dependent variable of a developmental state in South Korea and a predatory state in Pakistan. This paper refutes the neoliberal school of thought that attributes the success of the East Asian Tigers to market forces rather than the role of the state. It aligns itself with the developmental state theory and neo-statist approach emphasizing on state intervention to explain the phenomenon of the East Asian economic miracle and likewise, the failure of Pakistan to achieve similar levels of socioeconomic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial liberalization has noticeably reduced the role of the state in effectively influencing the economy in post-developmental states. Yet many studies have found that the legacies of the developmental model continue to influence the policies, institutions, and socioeconomic challenges that are faced by the states that previously adopted the model. These studies, however, do not clearly identify when and how such legacies may be manifested in state behavior. This paper contributes to filling this gap in the literature by arguing that financial crises can serve as a trigger to more clearly reveal the structural evidence of the legacy in institutions that were previously established and utilized for developmental objectives. By conducting a rigorous case analysis using historical and market data on the crisis responses of South Korea's public pension fund, this paper finds that South Korea's developmental legacy remains passively embedded in the governance structure of the pension fund in non-crisis times but manifests during financial crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Korea's tidal flats, called getbol , are muddy and grayish coastal wetlands under the tidal influence that constitute the predominant landform of South Korea's west and southwest coasts. Today, getbol is appreciated for its biological and geological diversity, for which it recently earned UNESCO's World Heritage status. Yet, throughout the 20th century, more than 50% of getbol areas were lost due to coastal reclamation, a civil engineering practice of enclosing and filling in getbol. This paper closely examines the history of getbol from the 1900s to the 1980s. While being messy and complex, the history shows a tendency for reclamation to have evolved from small to large in terms of scale and from private-led to state-led initiatives. In popular imaginations, the reclamation of getbol is thought to have been driven top-down by governing authorities, particularly by the "developmental state" that roughly governed from the 1960s through the 1980s. While this explanation aligns with the general trend, this paper highlights that the state did not act solely upon its own will but responded to the desires of those that the state had to satisfy to gain political legitimacy. Ultimately, within the context of South Korea's uneven geography of development, this paper argues that the reclamation of getbol transitioned from a project for the entire nation to a project for the rural populations and the agricultural sector, which lagged behind the country's tantalizing economic growth. • Reclamation in South Korea evolved from small and private-led to large and state-led. • The state responded to the desires of various actors to gain political legitimacy. • Reclamation transitioned from a national project to a project for the underdeveloped. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Korea's state-guaranteed bond market was nearly half the size of its sovereign bond market in 2022, and in the early 2000s, it was nearly twice the size of the latter. What explains the overwhelming prominence of this fixed-income market? This paper finds that the prominence of this market is a path-dependent consequence of developmental legacies and the Asian Financial Crisis. State-guaranteed bonds allowed the state to circumvent conditionalities that limited the state's ability to access domestic savings for policy objectives and helped shield the newly established sovereign bond market from premature supply pressure. This finding demonstrates that the state not only supports or creates markets but also uses markets to maintain its influence against external pressure. It also explains how the South Korean state was able to maintain its developmental policies after market liberalisation by tracking the post-crisis flow of domestic savings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Korea's transition to democracy in 1987 was driven by social movements. The grand democracy coalition included the opposition party and various civic associations, including student groups, labour unions, and religious organisations. Civil society continued to pressure the post-transitional governments to dismantle authoritarian structures and remove undemocratic practices. Political authoritarianism in South Korea in 1961–1987 was inseparable from the developmental state that delivered the country's impressive economic development. Government reform after the democratisation entailed the weakening, if not dismantling, of the developmental state, to make public governance and policymaking more transparent, responsive, and participatory. In this paper we examine government reform in South Korea, focusing on the first ten years following democratisation. The Roh Tae Woo government created the Administrative Reform Committee in 1988, and the Kim Young Sam government launched the Presidential Commission for Administrative Reform in 1993. Although both agencies engaged civilians in the reform process, it was the Ministry of Government Administration and the Ministry of Finance and Economy that dominated the designing and implementing of the reforms, which demonstrates that the introduction and implementation of collaborative governance in South Korea was state led. Comparative implications are drawn from the South Korean case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the expansion of social policies in South Korea during the context of globalization, by linking two theoretical approaches: social investment and the New Developmental State. Applying the case study method, I endorse the hypothesis of complementarily between the welfare state and the developmental state. The article shows that between the 1990s and the 2010s, South Korea expanded all sectors of social policies analyzed. Beyond the expansion of passive policies, active policies (including education) were reshaped in an integrated manner with the industrial policy to promote innovation, pursuing the transition to the knowledge-based society; also the family policy became one of the most generous among OECD countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A peculiar set of discontinuities and contradictions has recently emerged in the institutions-oriented literature that spans comparative capitalism, developmental states, and strategic techno-industrial governance. Around the globe, developmental states are reported to be both disappearing (chiefly in East Asia) an proliferating (not least in the United States). These depictions, we argue, are indicative of how the developmental state concept has become unmoored from its theoretical and historical grounding, and inadvertently politicised in scholarly debate. The concept has thus become unproductive (even if still of heuristic value). In this paper we offer a fresh way of thinking about the state's activism in both Korea and the United States. Specifically, we refurbish the idea of statecraft as it plays out in two very different national agendas, and as it is shaped by contrasting state-society relations. By paying attention to the differential international drivers and state ambitions, our analysis delivers a new and improved understanding of the character, purpose and capacities of the state in each national setting and, by implication, of their commitment and ability to confront specific challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why did previous Korean governments adopt nuclear energy as a baseline for electricity generation and promote the exportation of nuclear energy? Why did the current Korean government dramatically change its energy policy to energy transition and postnuclear energy in 2017? How did politicians, bureaucrats, industries, civil society organizations, and political epistemic communities interact in the nuclear energy policymaking process? This study addresses contemporary changes in Korean nuclear energy policy by applying the concepts "nuclear energy developmental state" and "political epistemic community." This paper attempts to identify the relevant actors in state transition, interactive matrices in policymaking processes, and the mechanisms by which the energy baseline has shifted. A comprehensive analysis of the President's National Policy Priority Agenda, National Energy Basic Plans, the Basic Plan of Long‐Term Electricity Supply and Demand, meeting minutes of relevant government committees, and interview data of relevant actors facilitates understanding of the formation, evolution, and transformation of the contemporary state of nuclear energy throughout different political administrations, including the Lee (2008–2012), Park (2013–2016), and Moon administrations (2017–Present). I argue that political coalitions are integral in nuclear energy policy change in specific and general energy policy. Compared to highlighted agents such as bureaucrats, antinuclear movements, and epistemic communities, the political epistemic community—closely connecting knowledge, value, and power—plays a role in developing different types of political coalitions through nuclear energy decision‐making. During the Lee and Park administrations, a nuclear energy developmental state emerged with a strong coalition between politicians, bureaucrats, and the nuclear industry with support from the nuclear energy epistemic community. However, the Moon administration is characterized by a different coalition that includes politicians, civil society organizations, and the postnuclear energy epistemic community, which propels energy transition from nuclear energy to a decentralized renewable energy system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concurs with Hamilton-Hart and Yeung that in South Korea and Taiwan, the predominance of global production networks, growth of private enterprises, and democratization have placed developmental state institutions under pressure. However, despite the reorganization of the pilot agency and state bureaucracy, new institutions have emerged to take on the functions of policy consultation and coordination. These institutions continue to control ample financial and regulatory resources, which allow state elites to coordinate industrial transformation and mediate global engagement. South Korea and Taiwan, however, differ in their ability to appease sociopolitical conflict and find common ground to defy neoliberal tendency. Moreover, they differ in their preexisting industrial structures, modes of engaging with the global market, and security considerations with respect to mainland China. Given path dependency, the two cases differ in their success in launching new industries and facilitating defensive globalization. Due to this divergence, the two economies hold disparate positions in the global division of labor: lead firms in South Korea, contract manufacturers in Taiwan, and aspiring platform leaders in both cases. Enterprises from these two economies also weave disparate types of production networks, with those from South Korea exhibiting a higher level of functional diversity and geographical expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Forum on Economics & Business / Közgazdász Fórum is the property of Hungarian Economists' Society of Romania and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose – The two East Asian developmental states of Japan and South Korea share very similar familialistic male breadwinner welfare regimes. However, in the recent years, both countries have made significant social policy reforms that are gradually modulating their familialistic male breadwinner welfare regimes. Both countries have extended public support for the family and women by provisioning, regulating, and coordinating childcare, elder care, and work-family reconciliation programs. At the same time, labour market deregulation reforms have also made employment more insecure, and created greater pressures on women to seek and maintain paid work outside the home. The purpose of this paper is to compare recent social policy reforms in Japan and Korea and discuss their implications for welfare state changes and gender equality. More specifically, it asks whether this signals the end of the old developmental state paradigm and a shift to a more gender equal policy regime. Design/methodology/approach – To answer this question, the paper examines recent social policy reforms in conjunction with economic and labour market policy reforms that have also been introduced since 1990. Findings – The analysis of social and economic policy reforms in Japan and South Korea shows a combination of both progressive and instrumentalist motivations behind social care expansions in these countries. Social care reforms in both countries were responses to the evident need for more welfare and gender equality determined by the structural and ideational changes that were taking place. But they were also a remodelling of the earlier developmental state policy framework. Indeed, social care expansions were not merely timely family friendly social policies that aimed to address new social risks; they were also important complements to the employment policy reforms that were being introduced at the same time. By investing in the family, the Japanese and Korean governments sought to mobilize women's human capital, encourage higher fertility, and facilitate job creation in social welfare and care services. Originality/value – This paper shows how Japanese and South Korean developmental states might be changing and remodelling themselves in the recent decades, and how new social policies are evolving in close coordination with economic and labor market policy reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Korea, once a representative East Asian developmental state, has state characteristics that amount to 'neoliberal developmentalism', which is a combination of the government's neoliberal political rationality and the developmental state's governmentality. To elucidate this, the case of Korea's recent green growth policymaking process is analysed. The government based the policy on its neoliberal political rationality. This featured the utilisation of neoliberalism to achieve the government's specific aims in the international, political and socio-economic spheres. Furthermore, the government revealed the developmental state's governmentality, focusing on the maintenance of the developmental state's policy autonomy and capacity. Based on the findings, this paper teases out the academic implications of the post-developmental state and the policy implications regarding policymaking in the context of neoliberal developmentalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with the literature on the ‘social construction of nature’, some scholars have recently emphasized the role of the state in the construction of nature by arguing that among various social forces and actors, the state plays a key role in making the discursive and material construction of nature. Based on this argument, and by focusing on the water resource policy of the Park Jung-Hee regime in South Korea (1961–79), this paper aims to explore the ways in which the state–nature relationship is materially and discursively produced by social forces that pursue their political and economic ends by acting in and through the state. Based on these analyses, this paper emphasizes the significance of the the state's role in hydropolitics, and suggests that hydropolitics should be seen in terms of materially and discursively contested interactions among social forces acting in and through the state and nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars of political economy have been debating the role of the Korean state in the economic development of the country, as the characteristics of a developmental state, a neoliberal state and/or a welfare state have appeared simultaneously in the various governments’ policies since the 1990s. This paper argues that although the nature, degree and extent of government intervention has varied from administration to administration, the basic stance of a developmental state has been retained while neoliberal and welfare policies have been used concurrently to further economic and social development. This coexistence of contradictory approaches reflecting alternative market economic systems was the product of a combination of government policies that has for the past 20 years provided the Korean government with the ability to deploy flexible policy mixes in response to changes in the political and economic environment and to maximise the outcomes of developmental policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

By examining comparatively two recent projects of university-led large-scale real estate development in South Korea and Singapore, this paper contributes to the ongoing efforts to problematise the methodological statism in the study of East Asian urbanisation, i.e., understanding it as a process dominated by state actors, on the one hand, and to challenge the perspective that university-led real estate projects are a neoliberal strategy as conventionally understood in the West on the other. To this end, this paper uses qualitative research methods to investigate how and why East Asian universities participate in real estate development projects; how the universities pursue their material goals by negotiating with the state, which is known to have led condensed urbanisation and industrialisation in East Asia (Global East). This paper concludes that speculative real estate development activities of East Asian universities are variegated based on their developmental legacies and need to be understood as more nuanced processes. The case studies demonstrate that East Asian universities have worked beyond their social roles by directly participating in the urban process, pursuing the accumulation of real estate assets that would eventually undermine their public role as educational institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Erdkunde is the property of Universitaet Bonn, Geographisches Institut and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Research Papers of the Wroclaw University of Economics / Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego we Wroclawiu is the property of Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny we Wroclawiu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper highlights the important roles of bureaucrats in developing and implementing Korean welfare reforms, which previous studies have overlooked or under-evaluated. It shows that developmental ideas and policy preferences established during the developmental phase of the country’s post-war history have continued to play a critical role in determining the nature and extent of Korean welfare reforms. Examples of such developmental ideas and preferences include those favouring work-incentive contributions and self-support discipline, both of which economic bureaucrats have consistently advocated even after the Korean developmental state was transformed into more liberalised governance. Examining two welfare innovations in Korea, this study concludes that embedded values do not easily perish and dominant values within a bureaucracy can filter, shape and restrict policy demands from civil society. In particular, the findings indicate that following the political decisions of the executive, Korean bureaucrats have enjoyed considerable autonomy in the phase of making up enforcement ordinances and regulations with the rationale for growth strategy in the post-developmental era. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper traces the rise of the migrant workers' movement in Korea and the conditions of their collective actions in the militant tradition of Korean democratisation. It does this with a focus on the causes of militancy and its similarities to and differences from the characteristics of Korean democratisation. This paper argues that some defects of the political system, the role of oppressive government policy, and intervention of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are the combined reason for migrant worker militancy. However, this militant trend faces the challenge of the judicialisation of politics as democratic consolidation has been deepened and the legal order of society is emphasised. Judicialisation requires reconsideration on how to maximise one's interest through legal procedure rather than militant struggle. Such a legal approach, however, again confronts a dilemma in which simply following legal procedure will not generate any change in existing laws. Furthermore, according to various cleavage lines such as labour vs. capital, national vs. non-national, and native vs. foreign cultures, the priority of struggles in migrant workers and support groups has been differentiated into labour rights, political rights, and cultural rights. In this situation, the migrant workers' movement should be sensitive to locate its future agenda considering the needs of migrants as well as the changing context of Korean society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In recent years, non-traditional or 'emerging' donors such as South Korea have organised their development cooperation models in a manner that seeks to complement the capacities of the private sector by extending the overseas activities of domestic businesses. To better understand this process, this article examines the role of South Korea's large, family-led conglomerates (chaebol) in its growing international development sector. In particular, we focus on how the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been used to link the role of its large, and frequently scandal-ridden, private companies to international development, and, by extension, how it has helped to internationalise state–business networks long associated with the Korean developmental state. We examine two strategies through which this has been carried out. The first is by extending the logic of creating shared value (CSV, a derivative of CSR) to aid and infrastructure projects in which chaebol and other state-linked businesses have participated. The second is by directly embedding CSR-based aid initiatives in the value chains of the specific chaebol themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development is a strategic research site to initiate productive conversation between sociology and Science and Technology Studies (STS), because, on one hand, development is a significant social change process, and simultaneously, on the other hand, it is a "contact zone" where diverse social practices from the West and the Global South meet and negotiate with one another. With the case study of the development in South Korea, this project will demonstrate how postcolonial studies of science and technology offer opportunities for innovations in development studies. The lens of STS contributes to elucidating how each development practice could be implemented and compete and negotiate in constituting "development assemblage" in South Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a world of rapid technological change and increasing interdependence between national and global networks, what institutions are necessary to facilitate the execution of a developmental project? An increasingly popular view expects the East Asian model of development to be ill-equipped to deal with the challenges involved in the information economy while the institutions of a ‘developmental network state’ are argued to be of greater utility. This paper tests this view in light of a dramatic shift in the business strategy of Korean firms in the telecommunications sector in the early years of the twenty-first century. I argue that core features of the Korean model have been recombined in creative and unanticipated ways to meet the twin challenges of economic openness and knowledge-based industrialisation. The argument is developed through an examination of the Korean government's promotion of a novel Korean-developed mobile broadcasting standard. I identify and trace the emergence of the institutional conditions which facilitated the rise of new and innovative forms of state-industry collaboration. The findings have implications for two outstanding issues in the developmental state literature: the role of former developmental states after liberalisation and the type of institutions useful beyond the catch-up process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this paper is to bring class compromise back into the study of South Korean political economy and present it as a possible alternative to the overwhelmingly one-sided neoliberal trajectory in South Korea. The process and conditions under which positive class compromise is acquired are identified in terms of the Polanyi-Gramsci nexus. This perspective suggests that the restoration of state-led developmentalism would be unfeasible under a democratic regime, while the implementation of a purely neoliberal blueprint may lead to unproductive class conflict. Employing this theoretical framework, I examine possibilities for positive class compromise in the context of the simultaneous transitions—democratization and neoliberalization—in South Korea.JEL classification: B5, H7, O53, P5 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Globally, several governments have adopted various forms of green stimulus policies (GSP) to manage environmental challenges and revitalize their national economies during crises. However, research on the varieties of GSPs within a country and the possible drivers of this diversity remain scarce. This study qualitatively compares the green growth and green new deal policies adopted under two different administrations in South Korea. Although both GSPs share similar components, they vary in their focus on nuclear energy and international cooperation. This study postulates that these differences are associated with the degree to which each administration saw GSP through the lens of a developmental state. Besides providing a comparative tool for examining GSPs and their elements, this research contributes to GSP research in a non-Western developed-country setting by highlighting how domestic factors shape the nature and composition of GSPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we review the past two decades of administrative reform in South Korea and argue that the dominant models and theories in the field, i.e., New Public Management (NPM), post-NPM, and traditional public administration have been in a state of fusion in implementing measures without a coherent reform model. We observe that the reform movements can neither challenge nor undermine the traditional bureaucracy and maintain that they are the result of a complex mix of both environmental events and contextual factors. We specifically examine the concrete change and development of administrative reform during the Kim Dae Jung (1998-2003), Roh Moo Hyun (2003-2008), and Lee Myung Bak (2008-2013) administrations in South Korea. Among the cases being considered are the restructuring of government ministries, the executive agency system, and rationalization of public enterprises, as well as such performance management schemes as the evaluation system for government departments and the Open Position System. We conclude that the developmental state and the hierarchical bureaucracy are still salient in South Korea's inconsistent administrative reform since the 1990s and that it is crucial to design a prudent reform strategy to achieve a more effective public sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces South Korea's history of coastal reclamation from the 1950s until today, exploring how it emerged as the state's program for modernization and economic development and how it has played particular roles in the changing political economy of the country. The developmental state scaled up the size of reclamation practices, significantly extending construction periods and leaving enduring impacts on coastal communities and the marine environment. Large-scale coastal reclamation had been primarily and persistently sought to create agricultural land, of which particular rationales emerged and evolved as the country rapidly industrialized and saw increasing urban-rural disparities. While coastal reclamation is said to have contributed to South Korea's post-war development, it also aided the state's highly uneven spatial economic development strategies by reinforcing the conditions of underdevelopment in rural areas. It had the repeated but temporary effect of politically appeasing rural populations marginalized from sharing in the nation's growing wealth. The agricultural rationales, especially those with an emphasis on rice production, continued to be invented by major reclamation institutions to justify further reclamation. Hailed as a territorial expansion project and promoted for agricultural land conversion through the logic of virtual urban-rural land exchange, the focus of reclamation eventually shifted from rice to land production. Recently as South Korea entered into the stage of post-development, the temporal mismatch between planning and completion found in mega-scale reclamation projects has undermined the initial agricultural land rationale. However, now even land turned flexible to accommodate non-agricultural uses is lacking demand as financial investment in reclaimed land has slowed down. Today, the vacancy of the reclaimed land is actively mobilized in local regionalist politics, once again giving false promises of development to rural populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the post-WWII era, great economic success was achieved in countries that adopted, developmental state strategy, mainly because of their centralized administrative power, back then and top-down industrial development model. However, with democratization, taking place, central governments have gradually lost their dominance over industrial, development and this further affected their land use policies. In the case of Taiwan and South Korea, the development of national industrial parks was significantly declined after 1990, and both countries adjusted their spatial planning system in the new century to work with industrial land policy after democratization. Accordingly, this article compares the two countries to explore the policy transformation and discusses the probable reasons that make the different adjustment approaches two countries adopted. It is found that though both Taiwan and South Korea are thought as developmental states, the distinction of economic structures and the power relationships between spatial plans and sectoral policies have led to different planning model. Taiwan, embraces its National Spatial Plan as a platform for sectoral policy coordination, whilst South Korea's 2002 Comprehensive National Territorial Plan gives directives to sectoral policy. In conclusion, this paper argues that a developmental state inevitably needs a certain degree alter of its industrial land use policy as democratization occurs, and the corresponding approaches of institutional adjustment may vary with state's nature. The experience of these two Asian Tigers would serve as a good reference point for young developmental states, as they might experience the transformation of land use policy during democratization. • Land use policy was used to promote industrialization in developmental states. • Democratization would inevitably lead to a reform in industrial land policy. • Developmental state types of DBS and DNS would affect spatial planning model. • Size of firms may cause different approaches on industrial land policy transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In July 2020, the South Korean government announced a 5-year, post-pandemic plan. This purportedly proactive policy aimed to advance digital and green industries to lay the groundwork for the post-pandemic era. This article examines the South Korean government's early proposal of a post-pandemic policy, titled the Korean New Deal, in order to explore how the pandemic crisis may affect the policymakers' envisioning of the post-crisis society. Moreover, the study examines how this early predictive plan may reveal the ways in which the pandemic is utilized for discursive politics. Drawing on the critical discourse analysis of policy documents and news coverage, this article questions how the "old" language of the developmental state is incorporated into the "new" policy. The study also shows how COVID-19′s impacts and uncertainties are translated into political discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Getting state–business relations "right" is considered to have been at the heart of the East Asian developmental states and their industrial success in the twentieth century. Given that the "right" state–business relations are an historically contingent outcome that emerges under a particular political and economic order, this article asks what is the emerging nature of their state–business relations in the twenty-first century? And, how is this relationship shaping their industrial competitiveness? These questions are explored by reconceptualising both the state and business to interrogate the nexus between the "competition state" and the "structural power" of business. Through a fine-grained investigation of green industrial policy-making in South Korea, it is shown how a state that is evolving into a competition state is made vulnerable to the structural power of business, challenging the widely held view that the right state–business relations are being maintained. The contribution made lies in identifying and tracing structural power, which remains under-examined in the state–business relations scholarship due to the difficulties associated with capturing quiet politics at work. This contribution invites further discussion on how state–business relations can be recalibrated to advance industrialisation in East Asia and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Korea’s developmental skill formation system was shaped in the 1970s by the Korean developmental state that proactively sought rapid Heavy and Chemical Industrialisation as the nation’s overarching goal. Vocational education at the upper secondary level and post-school in-company training in particular were strategically nurtured and closely managed by the state to supply the skilled workforce necessary, engendering a skill formation system subject to the state’s policies. The state’s tight control of the skill formation system was largely loosened in the 1980s, but since the 1990s it began to transform into a ‘post-developmental’ skill formation system geared toward Korea’s increasingly knowledge-based and globalising economy. Although it is still in the making, the post-developmental skill formation system is significantly different from the previous system in that the focus has shifted to vocational education at the secondary and the tertiary levels, whereas in-company vocational training is being gradually marginalised. Furthermore, the post-developmental skill formation system in Korea is both state-led and market-based, reflecting fundamental and dynamic changes in the nature of the Korean state since the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Korea had the largest number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 after China by February 2020. This situation changed dramatically in less than two months as it effectively managed the pandemic without imposing a nationwide lockdown. Furthermore, Korean pharmaceutical companies quickly manufactured sufficient test-kits and other COVID-19 essential medical devices to meet domestic demand and exported them to more than one hundred countries, including developed countries, amid global shortages. What explains South Korea's success story? Drawing on the developmental state concept, I argue that South Korea's success story can be attributed to 1) the early creation of a health official-led pilot agency; 2) the government's intervention for rapid production and export of medical equipment; 3) the distinct state-society relations. In doing so, contrary to the declinist literature, this study reveals that the Korean state's institutional capacity has not declined. It also illustrates that the developmental state seems to be an effective system in dealing with a pandemic and promoting economic activities during the crisis. However, it is yet to be seen how Korea will deal with future challenges arising from the new wave. This study also suggests how the Global South can learn lessons from the South Korean experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Choi Soon-sil scandal, which led to the arrest of the de facto leader of Samsung Group Lee Jae-yong and the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye, exposed the ugly features of state capture in South Korea. Although the 1997–1998 financial crisis highlighted the problems of crony capitalism, it has been widely recognized that South Korea overcame the crisis by implementing far-reaching reforms of the chaebol's corporate governance. This article explores why the post-crisis reform failed to end the practices of crony capitalism and why global companies like Samsung engaged in such corruption through a historical case study of Samsung Group. It highlights how increasing inequality and chaebol concentration have produced both popular pressures for institutional reform and incentives for chaebol to capture the policy-making process in the context of the changing state–business–civil society relations in the democratic post-developmental state era. I find that while the main objective of the chaebol's bribery and lobbying of the government before the financial crisis was business expansion through the acquisition of low-interest loans and other government favors, it has changed to weakening or circumventing government regulations on corporate governance in order to achieve easier and cheaper dynastic successions of corporate control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

East Asian countries come most to mind when considering the role of governmental institutions in the contemporary economy. Specifically, it is widely assumed that the openness of economies, the maturation of companies, and their participation in global production chains have created extraordinary pressures that erode opportunities and incentives for government-business collaboration. We test this assumption in the South Korean context, with a focus on the case of robotics. This case is fruitful because it highlights the multiple challenges that face South Korean policymakers. These include the capacity to deliver cutting-edge technologies, to create new industry, to address potential downsides with novel solutions, and to engage the private sector in a relationship of 'governed interdependence'. In examining Korean strategies for grappling with the pressures they face, we seek to illuminate a pattern of state activity that existing concepts fail to capture. By refocusing the concept of geo-economic statecraft to encompass domestically deployed initiatives at the techno frontier, we intend to breach the impasse in the developmental/post developmental state debate and to open up a new research agenda. That agenda should probe the conditions that might motivate states to craft techno-economy building initiatives, and the relationships of governed interdependence which they must forge to achieve them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article revisits the developmental state literature that stresses the unitary role of the state in steering economic development in East Asia. Focusing on the Korean state actors' diversity and their agency after the trend of globalization and democratization, this article highlights various state actors as agents and looks into how the role of state actors has changed with industrial development, using the setting of the Korean online gaming industry over the past two decades. By examining government policy measures on the industry, I found that the state actors have actively engaged with the industry, however, this agency has not been uniform due to the different purposes of the actors and sometimes led a detrimental effect against the needs or expectations of the industry. The findings, thus, contribute to the literature by suggesting the potentiality of agent-driven institutional change and the heterogeneity that comes from the state actors' policy engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a marked rise in the breadth and depth of the South Korean state's support of entrepreneurial finance since the Asian Financial Crisis. This article provides novel conceptual and empirically-grounded understanding of the phenomenon by answering two interconnected research questions: (1) does the government's financial support of high-technology entrepreneurship in the Creative Economy Action Plan constitute continuity or change in the Korean state's encouraging of entrepreneurial finance? and (2) what is motivating these efforts? Making use of interview data and policy document analysis, we argue that Creative Economy efforts represent continuity of entrepreneurial finance support, especially since the Asian Financial Crisis. In answering the second question, we argue that legitimate social purpose has propelled Post-Asian financial crisis South Korean policy-makers to strive to diversify the sources of economic activity and job creation away from chaebols while simultaneously embedding the chaebol in the growing entrepreneurial ecosystem. The legitimate social purposes have input legitimacy via fit with employment and diversification aims and output legitimacy gleaned from the perceived positive performance of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban redevelopment in Korea has worked effectively as new-build, high-rise gentrification, since it is directly connected with social upgrading as a result of the improvement of the physical environment. This research attempts to explain the role of place entrepreneurs, especially property owners, in urban redevelopment and unravel key factors and their relationship to such redevelopment. The formation and nature of pro-gentrification coalitions is explored through a case study conducted in Yongsan, Seoul. Urban redevelopment processes have been primarily governed by the exchange value interests of property owners. Absentee landlords comprise the majority of property owners who have played the role of speculative investors. Even though owner-occupiers know they cannot afford to return after urban redevelopment, they do not strongly oppose urban redevelopment as long as they can share in urban redevelopment profit. To sum up, property owners play an important role as developers in the Korean urban redevelopment system and they accelerate gentrification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The developmental state literature emphasises the importance of state autonomy and capacity, with a particular focus on a Weberian type of meritocratic bureaucracy. Existing studies of South Korea’s economic development generally credit Park Chung-hee for establishing such a state. This article questions this assessment with careful process tracing of the development of a meritocratic bureaucracy in the country. The findings suggest that the contrast between the predatory Rhee regime (1948–1960) and the developmental Park regime (1961–1979) has been exaggerated. Meritocracy in South Korea’s bureaucratic recruitment and promotion systems developed gradually over several decades, including during Rhee’s regime as well as the short democratic episode (1960–1961). What then explains the evolution of a developmental state in Korea? This article suggests that land reform contributed to not only creating social structural conditions favourable to state autonomy but also promoting the development of a meritocratic bureaucracy by propelling rapid expansion of education and by mitigating the extent of political clientelism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study explores the way in which South Korean water policy has been dynamically (re-)constructed by continuing political contestations among diverse social forces acting in and through the state in the face of political and economic liberalisation. The path-dependency of the state-driven water resource policy under the former authoritarian regime did not disappear even after the democratisation. It was difficult to transform the old authoritarian and hierarchical water governance to the newly democratic and environmentally friendly one because the Ministry of Construction, as a main actor in driving water policy under the authoritarian regimes, did not give up its interest in a dam-based policy orientation, although it did partially accept institutional tools for democratic policy making, such as public hearings and the participation of civil society in the process of establishing the water policy plan. It also showed democratic and environment-friendly gestures using the rhetoric of environmentalism and localisation. Overall, this article emphasises the importance of the path-dependency of the past authoritarian regimes under democratised society to better understand the current democratic regime’s policy orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reviews debates concerning financialization in South Korea, with a focus on ongoing arguments between liberal, post-Keynesian, institutionalist and Marxist economists. It argues that post-Keynesian and institutionalist perspectives in particular neglect important class processes through which the financial circuit operates within the Korean economy, especially the power of Korea’s large, family-led conglomerates, or chaebol. In order to build upon Marxist approaches to Korean finance, we argue that Nitzen and Bichler’s approach to the ‘capitalization’ of capitalist class power provides a useful heuristic for understanding the differential power of Korean chaebol and their integration into global capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The disbanding of the Maritime Police was the Korean President's political attempt to avoid blame after the Sewol ferry accident. Under the government reorganization bill, which was drafted by the government and submitted to the National Assembly, the Maritime Police will be renamed the Maritime Safety Agency and put under the control of the newly created ministry of national safety. Furthermore, the Maritime Police's investigation and intelligence functions will be transferred to the National Police Agency, and its roles of rescue operations and maritime security will be moved to the new national safety body. The reality of this policing reform is closer to 'organization succession' than it is to 'organization termination.' Borrowing the concept of blame avoidance, we will examine the nature, causes, and consequences of the blame observed in this process of policing reform, which is intertwined with the historical background of the developmental state in South Korea. In this study, we expect to acquire important lessons about how the reformation of police organizations was used by the Korean government as an instrument for responding to disaster by providing new insights into the study of the complex forms of political interactions among multiple stakeholders in times of crisis. In particular, we will try to understand the causes and effects of this extreme case, the Sewol ferry accident, and the subsequent disintegration of the Maritime Police Agency through the perspective of the Korean police bureaucracy and the developmental states. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The climate change policy design of the Lee Myung-bak administration was the outcome of interest group politics around the greenhouse gas and energy target management scheme, carbon taxes, and the emission-trading scheme. Using qualitative methods, this research examines powerful stakeholders and their interests at play in Korea’s climate change policymaking processes. It also links the political economy of climate change policy to the legacy of the ‘developmental state’ and examines environmental developmentalism in the design of the three climate change policies. The Lee administration strongly promoted environmental developmentalism, which created a new growth engine in an environmental field, while bolstering manufacturing businesses and excluding the views of environmental non-governmental organisations from the target-management and the emission-trading schemes. The Lee administration also sought to facilitate pro-business measures such as low taxes, which led it to reject a carbon tax. Therefore, environmental developmentalism was central to the politics of the Lee administration’s climate change policy design. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the 2012 Korean presidential election, both liberal and conservative parties fought their campaigns on the slogan of “economic democratization,” marking a strong departure from past presidential elections and the growth-first policies of the then-incumbent conservative administration. Both parties pledged to tackle growing social polarization and the concentration of economic power by reforming the corporate governance of Korea's large, family-led conglomerates (chaebol), to the degree thatchaebolreform itself became synonymous with economic democratization. This focus led to a series of heated exchanges among liberal-left reformers about the vision of economic democratization being promoted, with one camp favoring the creation of a “fair market” through the restructuring of thechaeboland another promoting the protection of thechaebol’s management rights over their affiliates as a desirable strategy for the creation of a Korean welfare state. This essay examines the long-standing tensions between these two liberal-left perspectives and argues that the capital-centric and market-based visions these camps promoted risk confining intellectual debate over the meaning of economic democracy within boundaries that serve dominant political interests. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Why, after fifty years of fossil fuelled “brown growth” and steadfast refusal to join international agreements on carbon reduction did South Korea prioritize “green growth” (GG) as an overarching national initiative in 2008? Our principal aim is to explain Korea’s ambitious pursuit of GG since that time. We argue that Korean-style environmentalism is best understood as an extension of the long-held philosophy of developmentalism amongst the policy-making elite. We first examine the origins and specify the central tenets of this new philosophy that we term developmental environmentalism. We then discuss the motivations that led the policymakers to embrace developmental environmentalism, and the means by which GG was translated into swift and sustained policy action. While the empirical focus of this article is Korea, we conclude by tentatively proposing an analytical framework that might explain why some countries are more likely than others to initiate a sustained shift towards GG. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focusing on the changing relationships among the state, civil society, and science and technology (S&T) in contemporary Korean history, this article reviews the literature of science and technology studies on the politics of technoscience in South Korea. Arguing that the active role of the state in developing S&T is a defining characteristic of Korean S&T, this article first reviews the statist approaches to S&T, where the politics of technoscience involves mainly policy decisions. Then, by reviewing work on the role of nationalism in Korean technoscience, this article discusses the literature with attention to the reciprocal relationships between technoscience and political power mediated by the nationalist view of S&T. Next, this article evaluates the literature on the Biosafety and Bioethics Act, with emphasis on the interactions among diverse actors, nongovernmental organization activists in particular, in the legislative process. Finally, the literature on public participation and social movements in technoscience is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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