Corporative Experiment in South Korea: From State to Societal Corporatism.

The Korean Tripartite Commission (KTC) established in 1998 by the newly elected government introduced societal corporatism to break through the financial crisis. It was a unique approach in the region where state corporatism is widespread. It was based on a broad social consensus for economic reforms. What factors affected the new direction of corporatist structure in South Korea? Why did each economic actor engage in the KTC? Early market liberalization and the Asian financial crisis changed the power structure of business, labor and state. The Korean government adopted societal corporatism to facilitate the reform process. Based on the theoretical framework of Katzenstein’s social corporatism, this paper utilizes Walter Korpi’s power resource model and Peter Swenson’s cross class alliance model. The Korean case demonstrates that social corporatism was a hybrid form consisting of decentralized labor, weakened capital organization, and a politically weak government, along with loose and strategic social class alliance to resolve the financial crisis. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]