Innovation Policies in Japan and Korea in the 1980s: Industrial Policy as Social Policy

Abstract

This paper analyzes the spatial characteristics of innovation policies in Japan and Korea, focusing on the decision-making process of the Technopolis in the 1980s, and the blurred boundary between industrial policy and welfare policy. A comparison between the innovation policies of East-Asian countries can provide new insights into the relationship between politics and public policy in the region.

This paper advances and tests the following hypothesis. The policy shift in Japan was from geographic concentration to dispersion, and the shift in Korea was from geographic concentration to dispersion and back to concentration. In Japanese economic policy, politicians and voters have a clientelistic relationship. The employment security entailed in such a policy is regarded as a special interest, and the target for support of industrial policy tends to be dispersed and serves as a functional equivalent of social policy. However, in Korea, which is based on a relatively programmatic relationship, the target for support tends to be concentrated, except for the period when employment security is regarded as a general interest.

This paper contributes to findings about the political dynamism through which innovation policy becomes the functional equivalent of social policy in East Asian countries.