• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.237-253
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• 2022

This article offers an account of how regional development policy in Korea has evolved under the influence of actor-networks comprising the cultural circuit of soft capitalism. In so doing, the roles played by transnational actor-networks forged between global consulting firms and national business media are emphasized. For this discussion, the waning of spatial Keynesianism in the country is contextualized in the first place, with particular attention to changing planning goals of key regional development policies including consultancies, influential policy gurus (e.g., Michael Porter and Richard Florida), and local business media outlet Maekyong are found to be key movers and shakers in the transition. These empirical findings call for striking a balance between dominant structuralist accounts and emerging actor-oriented approaches, and also help shed a new light on the dualistic conceptualization of managerialist and entrepreneurial governance in a way that the latter may be a new form of the former.