Eclipse or reconfigured? South Korea's developmental state and challenges of the global knowledge economy

Yin Wah CHU*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

41 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Globalists and former students of the Asian developmental state maintain that the latter has succumbed to the forces of globalization. They believe that the global knowledge economy involves the thorough integration of the global economy, continuous innovation and networks rather than hierarchies and that these factors are foreign to the operational logic of the developmental state and thus render it obsolete. This article contends that the global economy is not as open as supposed, and that the challenges posed by the knowledge economy, while genuine, tend to be uneven. Focusing on Korea's information technology sector and relying on documentary and interview data, the present article suggests that, while the Korean state no longer relies on its erstwhile finance and regulation strategies, it has continued to articulate development visions and sought to achieve them through deploying public resources to structure the market. Rather than going into eclipse, the Korean developmental state has been reconfigured.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)278-303
Number of pages26
JournalEconomy and Society
Volume38
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2009

Scopus Subject Areas

  • History
  • Economics and Econometrics
  • Social Sciences(all)

User-Defined Keywords

  • Developmental state
  • Globalization
  • Information technology
  • Knowledge economy
  • Korea

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