The Korean Political Economy Model in a Comparative Perspective

Political democratization in the late 1980s and changes in social and economic institutions since the economic crisis in 1997 have caused debates about the transformation of Korean political economy model. Studies which pay attention to the recession of the authoritarian state after the democratization in 1987 and the growth of the civil society have raised expectations for the transition to the corporatist regime as an alternative model. On the other hand, studies focusing on social and economic reforms since the 1990s argue that the Korean model has been transformed into a neoliberal system. This paper, however, holds that the Korean political economy can still be classified as a developmental model, despite the adaptation to changes in the political and economic environments due to democratization and globalization. This paper attempts to identify the position of the Korean model from a comparative perspective by comparing the characteristics of the Korean political economy with those of corporatism and neoliberalism.