Neoliberalism and the decline of the developmental state Yun Tae Kim Journal of Contemporary Asia; 1999; 29,4,

Academic Research Library pg 441

441

Neoliberalism and the Decline of the Developmental State

Yun Tae Kim*
|Abstract Sincc ihc 1980s. the Korean siatc has witnessed significant challenges from big business (chaebol) as well as from organized labor and popular sector. Regime transition has influenced the social and political relations between the state and big business. Thus the ccntral argument is therefore that the developmental state has gndually eroded as the power and capability of the developmental state was increasingly affected by economic liberalization and political democratization. At the same time the stale and big business arc increasingly connected within more institutionalized networks. The argument will be advanced that the traditional relationship between the state and big business, which was characterized as one of state domination and the subordination of big business, has been changing more radically than the statist analysts presumed. J

Many statist analysts have attempted to demonstrate that economic performance for national development has been led by t'le autonomous state."1 In these statist analyses, the Korean state is conceived -s beng a u.viary and internally cohesive actor driven by insulated bureaucratic competence, and I he bureaucratic state has maintained close ties with big business, but not in an equal selling: the state is superior and dominant, while business is dependent on and subordmatcd to the state. Thus the state is considered to have been able to intervene in business activities and manage national-level macroeconomic strategies. However, it has been argued that the era of neoliberal triumph in the 1980s gave way to the radic;il structural change of the international political economy. It is much harder for national governments to intervene and manage their economies faced with the global division of labor. absence of capital controls, and the operation of the world financial markets. Thus much controversy has recently come to surround the transformative role of the East Asian states in the economy. In recent years some statist analysts also shifted their focus away from the extreme stale autonomy views that all states are autonomous from civil society and actually have the capacity lo impose their preferred policies.2 The shift in emphasis from state power to business power, from state autonomy" to embedded autonomy, is also apparent in the recent work of Peter Evans. * But they hardly explain why and how the developmental stale declined with relation to the conglomerate power. In fact, it is necessary to focus on the political dynamics of the state, big business and other social groups concerning the impacts of economic liberalization, political democratization and globalization.
Asiatic Research Center. Korea University, Seoul I would like lo thank Leslie Sklair. Nicos Mouselis, Aidan Foster-Carier. Patrick MacCiovern, and Keith Taylor for helpful comments________________________________ Journal of Conlemporaiy Asia. I'ol 29 No 4(1999)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.