Abstract
This paper seeks to enhance our understanding of the complexities entwined with carrying economic liberalization by focusing on the politics of development, liberalization, and foreign direct investment (FDI) in South Korea. The first section identifies key political, economic, and ideological components of Park Chung Hee’s developmental system and demonstrates that it entailed political and social mechanisms far beyond its notable economic institutions. This analysis is then employed to develop an enriched understanding of the contentious politics surrounding FDI liberalization in the 1980s and 1990s during the presidencies of Chun Doo Hwan and Kim Young Sam. These sections demonstrate that both societal and bureaucratic actors often rooted their resistance to reforms within the ideological milieu that underpinned the Park regime’s legitimacy. Particularly, that the fervent nationalist, autonomy-centered language deployed to support the developmental dictatorship served to delegitimize market reforms as well as those who supported them. Finally, the paper incorporates data collected during field research at several universities in South Korea during March 2016 to evaluate the efficacy of official efforts to alter public sentiments, as embodied by the socio-cultural component of Kim Young Sam’s segyehwa initiative. The data lends some credence to the notion that this generation of Koreans holds more positive attitudes towards globalization than their predecessors, but that this has done little to change their overriding negative assessment of major political and economic institutions.
