Neoliberalization of South Korea: Economic Restructuring, Social Precarity, and Post Developmental Democracy

No doubt South Korea‘s neoliberalization has been closely influenced by the ideologies, policies, and experiences of the precedingly neoliberal West, but neoliberal shifts in the South Korean context have most critically conflated with the conditions and structures of its own distinctive developmental political economy and life world. No doubt South Korea‘s neoliberalization has been closely influenced by the ideologies, policies, and experiences of the precedingly neoliberal West, but neoliberal shifts in the South Korean context have most critically conflated with the conditions and structures of its own distinctive developmental political economy and life world. Over nearly four decades of apparent neoliberal transitions, the country is now simultaneously neoliberal, developmental, neoliberally developmental, and developmentally neoliberal. Such complexities and contradictions are systematically analyzed in this transdisciplinary volume written by leading analysts of South Korea and beyond. They exhaustively cover the political, economic, social, and cultural dimensions of South Korea’s neoliberalization in conjunction with its earlier developmental order and latest all-front restructuring. Chang Kyung-Sup is SNU Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Seoul National University, South Korea Kim Se-Kyun is Professor Emeritus in Department of Political Science, Seoul National University, South Korea. Keun Lee is SNU Distinguished Professor of Economics, Seoul National University, South Korea. No doubt South Korea‘s neoliberalization has been closely influenced by the ideologies, policies, and experiences of the precedingly neoliberal West, but neoliberal shifts in the South Korean context have most critically conflated with the conditions and structures of its own distinctive developmental political economy and life world. Over nearly four decades of apparent neoliberal transitions, the country is now simultaneously neoliberal, developmental, neoliberally developmental, and developmentally neoliberal. Such complexities and contradictions are systematically analyzed in this transdisciplinary volume written by leading analysts of South Korea and beyond. They exhaustively cover the political, economic, social, and cultural dimensions of South Korea’s neoliberalization in conjunction with its earlier developmental order and latest all-front restructuring.