South Korea: Food security, development and the developmental state

2014 ◽  
pp. 312-334
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Developmental State

From Relative Autonomy to Consensual Development: The Case of South Korea

1995 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 630-644 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tat Yan Kong
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Developmental State ◽  
Economic Success ◽  
Relative Autonomy ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Democratic Polity ◽  
Societal Actors ◽  
Rapid Industrialization ◽  
Autonomous State ◽  
Economic Leadership

The success of the autonomous state in promoting rapid industrialization in South Korea from 1961 to 1987 is usually seen in terms of the state's capacity to coerce reluctant societal actors into productive economic pursuits. The economic sluggishness associated with some autonomous states suggests that any explanation of Korean economic success also needs to mention the factors that constrained bureaucratic abuse and the methods by which societal motivation behind the industrialization effort was maintained over three decades. Democratization has accentuated the capacity of societal actors to challenge the state's economic leadership but has not resulted in the emergence of an economic free for all. While similarities exist, Korea will experience greater difficulty in realizing the synthesis between developmental state and liberal-democratic polity (consensual development) that characterized postwar Japanese development.

scholarly journals Changes in body weight and food security of adult North Korean refugees living in South Korea

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 307 ◽  
Author(s):  
HaYoung Jeong ◽  
Soo-Kyung Lee ◽  
Sin-Gon Kim
Keyword(s):  
Body Weight ◽  
Food Security ◽  
South Korea ◽  
North Korean Refugees

scholarly journals Four Asian Tigers' Political and Economic Development Revisited 1998-2017: From the Perspective of National Identity

2021 ◽  
Vol .4 (4) ◽  
pp. 54-61
Author(s):  
Dong-Ching Day
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
National Identity ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Developmental State ◽  
State Theory ◽  
Economic Growth Rate ◽  
Asian Tigers ◽  
Identity Issue ◽  
Better Than

Developmental state used to be and is still regarded as a very practical theory to explain why Four Asian Tigers-Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore enjoyed almost averagely double-digit economic growth rate each year from 1970 to 1990 as well as East Asian economic development. However, developmental state theory couldn’t tell why South Korea and Singapore’s economic development had done much better than Taiwan and Hong Kong’s in terms of GDP per capita after 2003 and 2004 respectively. The aim of the study is trying to use national identity perspective to explain why it happens like this, since Four Asian Tigers’ economic development more or less was troubled by national identity issue. The major difference between these two groups is that South Korea and Singapore have done better in dealing with national identity issue than Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Towards a theory of the transformation of the developmental state: political elites, social actors and state policy constraints in South Korea and Taiwan

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tian He
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
State Policy ◽  
Democratic Transition ◽  
Developmental State ◽  
Transformation Process ◽  
Strategic Choices ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Developmental States ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
Democratic Elections

AbstractThe institutional changes to the developmental states in South Korea and Taiwan have been well-documented. This paper offers a theory to recount the states' actual transformation processes in these two cases. Advancing existing insight that the state's transformation process is shaped by the emergence of either concentrated or dispersed economic interests, I argue that a crucial process behind the transformation of the developmental state is a democratic transition of a country motivated by ruling elites' strategic choices. Specifically, a democratic transition in a developmental state is shaped by two consecutive elite decisions: (1) the decision to initiate democratic transition in response to the democratic mobilisation of the middle class; (2) the decision to introduce democratic elections in response to an electoral threat from opposition elites. This process of democratic transition facilitates the emergence of state policy constraints by transforming the political foundation of the state.

scholarly journals High capacity, low resilience: The ‘developmental’ state and military–bureaucratic authoritarianism in South Korea

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olli Hellmann
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
High Capacity ◽  
Developmental State ◽  
The State ◽  
Sufficient Condition ◽  
International Context ◽  
The Military ◽  
Infrastructural Power

This article argues that high levels of state capacity are not a sufficient condition for consolidating autocratic rule. Rather, whether non-democratic rulers can harness the infrastructural power of the state to implement strategies of regime stabilization depends on three crucial factors: the state’s social embedding; the international context; and the extent of elite cohesion. The paper develops this argument through a case study of the military–bureaucratic regime in South Korea (1961–1987), which – despite a high-capacity ‘developmental’ state at its disposal – failed to maintain high levels of resilience.

Global Capital, Business Groups and State Coordination: the Changing Profile of Chaebol-State Relations in South Korea

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Soyon Kim
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Developmental State ◽  
Government Control ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Financial Behaviour ◽  
State Coordination ◽  
Korean State ◽  
State Relations ◽  
Political Economic

This article examines the effects of global capitalism and state coordination on the financial behaviour of <em>chaebol</em> (business conglomerates) in South Korea. This study focuses on the evolution from controller to coordinator in the post-developmental South Korean state. In recent times, the Korean government has been studied as the exemplar of the Asian newly industrializing economies (NIEs) based on its ability to <em>control</em> economic development. As civil society pressures outgrew government control in the 1990s, the government’s mission shifted from control to <em>coordination </em>– the state sought to accommodate newly emerging or enlarged bargaining domains of key political-economic actors. However, the emergent post-developmental state is buffeted by the growing strength of the private sector, domestically and transnationally. While civil society strived to mobilize mass movements to further social democracy, the neoliberal evolution of capitalist class interests generated institutional configurations favouring the hegemony of finance capital.

From Learning to Creating: Biotechnology and the Postindustrial Developmental State in Korea

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-517 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Price Competition ◽  
Developmental State ◽  
Information And Communications Technologies ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Communications Technologies ◽  
Manufacturing Sectors ◽  
Catch Up ◽  
Transformative Process ◽  
Capital Development

South Korea is currently undergoing a process of industrial restructuring. As competitors in the Asian region have begun to catch up—in terms of technological know-how, investment mobilization, price competition, and human capital development—advanced Asian economies such as South Korea's have had to shift their industrial focus away from conventional manufacturing sectors toward postindustrial sectors including biotechnology, nanotechnology, and advanced information and communications technologies. As such, the ongoing processes of postindustrial restructuring in South Korea have involved a transition from the industrial learning paradigm to a new knowledge creation paradigm where technology innovation, rather than technology borrowing, is key. This article examines this transformative process in the area of biotechnology and bioindustry development. It specifically looks at how the South Korean developmental state has begun to reinvent itself in order to meet the challenges of innovation-driven industrialization.

The developmental state and social enterprise in South Korea

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bokgyo Jeong
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Developmental State ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Enterprises ◽  
The South ◽  
Content Type ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Role Of The State

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the distinctiveness of South Korean social enterprises from a historical institutionalism perspective. From this perspective, the author focuses on the proactive roles played by the government in the process of emergence and formulation of social enterprises in South Korea. The author roots this paper in the concept of the developmental state and examines how this concept applies to newly emerging social enterprises in South Korea. Design/methodology/approach – This paper first introduces the process of South Korean social enterprises’ emergence as an independent phenomenon. The author explains the process with a link to governmental actions, such as the introduction of public programs and government acts. Second, this paper introduces the concept of developmental state which captures the proactive role of the state in social, economic and political development in South Korea. Third, this paper applies the institutional framework proposed by Kerlin (2013) to see how the South Korean social enterprise model can be located from a comparative perspective and how the South Korean model can contribute to the expansion of the existing framework. Findings – This paper finds that the state involvement in South Korea is a reflection of the historical path of the developmental state. The cross-comparison of South Korean social enterprises from a historical institutionalist approach finds that the South Korean case may contribute to the ongoing scholarly debate by suggesting taking a Weberian ideal type of an interventionist state into account for an extension of the proposed framework. This paper also uncovered the strategic approach of the South Korean Government in utilizing this public policy tool by adopting and combining existing social enterprise models. Research limitations/implications – This paper demonstrates the state’s intents to mobilize economic and societal resources as public policy intervention tools, which can be understood from a developmental state context. This role would be distinct when compared to those in Europe and the USA. This paper has a limitation to restrict its analytical scope to formally recognized social enterprises because it focuses on the role of the state in utilizing social enterprises for public policy agenda: social development and social welfare provision. Practical implications – As a practical implication, this study might provide an insightful framework for South Korean public policy makers, outlining the contributions and limitations of state-led public policies associated with social enterprises. As seen in the historical path of governmental interventions, governmental public policies do not necessarily guarantee their sustainable community impacts without the consideration of private or nonprofit actors’ spontaneous involvements. The flip side of state-led interventions requires policy makers to become more cautious, as they address social problems with public policy intents. Originality/value – The majority of current studies on social enterprises in South Korea mainly focus on reporting the quantitative increase in the number of registered social enterprises. Beyond this quantitative description of its achievement, this paper also provides a historical narration and philosophical background of this phenomenon. Additionally, it shows how this artificial government intervention in social enterprises could be accepted from a historical perspective and brought remarkable responses from the private and civil society sectors in South Korea.

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