• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
• /
• v.29 no.2
• /
• pp.137-165
• /
• 1994

Structural adjustment of industry (or industrial restructuring) seems to be inherent in the process of capitalist economic development, which tends to be proceeded with shifts from one stage to another in order to overcome structural crises generated in each stage. The structural adjustment of industry is necessarily accompanied with regional restructuring, since it is not only projected on spece, but also mediated by space. Such a restructuring necessitates industrial and uneven regional devlopment through which capital can seek excessive profits over the rate of socio-spatial average. The industrial restructuring and uneven regional development in the 1980s in Korea can be seen as a process in which capital attempted with a strong support of the govenment to overcome the crises in the end of 1970s and hence to go on rapid economic growth. In this process, capital, especially monopoly capital concentrated into few conglomerates, pursued both extensive expansion and intensive development of industry simultaneously. In results, the Korean economy could eliminate some of peripheral characters and maturate the Fordist accumulation system. The extensive expansion of the Korean industry in the 1980s was stimulated mainly through the enlargement and adjustment of investment for equipment facilities which was planned to exclude or rationalize traditional light industries on some places, and to continue rapid growth of key heavy-chemical industries, especially of fabricated metal industry, on other places. In this process, keeping mainly the existing developmental axis which polarized the Seoul Metroplitan region and the Southeast region in Korea, the enhancing spatial mobiiity of capital and the further differentiating division of labour enforced a tendency of concentration of all types of industry in the Seoul Metropolitan region, and at the same time provoked the diffusion of some industries over Jeolla and Chungchong regions in a considerable extent. The intensive development of industriai structure in the 1980s was pursued through the strategic encouragement of subcontracting small firms mainly which produced assembling components, the technical enhancement and factory (semi-) automation, and the enrichment of service industries for estate management, finance, distribution and retailing which supported and complemented the production of goods. In this process, enabling capital to extend and elaborate its domination over space through the reorganization of regulating systems, the Fordist division of labour generated a socio-spatial hierarchy in the nation-wide scale that characterized: the Seoul Metropolitan region as an overmaturated (or overarching) Fordist region performing the conceptive functions of management, research and development, in which all types of industry (including service industries) tended to be reconcentrated; Kyungsang region as a maturated Fordist region with excutive branches of large conglomerates and with subcontracting firms around them which produced standardized products through the automized production processes in secialized Fordist industries or rationalized traditional industries; and Jeolla and Chungchong regions as newly devloping Fordist regions with newly migrated branches and some subcontracting small firms-in relatively older Fordist industries or partly rationalized traditional industries. From these analyses, it can be argued that the structural adjustment of the Korean industry in the 1980s, which had carried out both through the extensive expansion and the intensive deveiopment, strengthened further uneven regional development process, even though it appears to have reduced apparently the economic and regional disparity by balancing numerically large and small firms and by extending the Fordist industrial space nation-wideiy. And it seems more persuasive to see that the Korean industrial structure in the 1980s maturated the Fordist system of accumulation, but not yet transformed towards the post-Fordist (or the so-called flexible) accumulation system, even though the Korean economy in the 1990s seems to be under a pressure of restructuring towards the latter system.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.285-299
• /
• 2005

The economic reform in China since 1978 has been increasingly sped up and deepened. The recent development of private enterprises, especially, has significant economic and political implications, whereas its regional differentiation has considerable impacts on both the development potential of certain regions and overall regional growth pattern. This study aims to understand the regional pattern of private enterprise growth as well as the institutional change which has structured the growth process. The development of private enterprises turned out to be closely tied to the marketization strategy of dual-track system and policy needs to reduce the unemployment level in both urban and 겨ral China. The regional pattern of the private enterprise growth can be characterized as ever-increasing spatial differentiation. Based on the basic statistical analysis results, it is argued that the private enterprise growth is closed related with the marketization level of the regional economy. Therefore, the strategy of developing private sector will be more important in shaping the regional development path as well as potential.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
• /
• v.29 no.3
• /
• pp.281-296
• /
• 1994

It is generally accepted that there is always a potential for crisis in the capitalist society because of the internal contradiction of capitalism. The contradiction is explicitly and implicitly expressed in space. The fundamental contradiction in capitalism, however, is controlled and mediated by the state (i.e., the capitalist state). We thus could argue that the state plays an important role in the capitalist society and in the capitalist spatial formation. It is necessary to note how and why spatial structure has developed unevenly in capitalist societies, particularly in the U.S., The general concept of uneven geographical development is understood in the context of the capitalist economic system and the role of the state. But the problem is that the capitalist state itself has a contradiction between the productive function (i.e., accumulation function) and the reproductive function (i.e., legitimation function). The compromise of the two functions is always the dilemma of the state and the state becomes the object of class struggle (e.g., political class struggle) . The research questions are as follows. First, what is the role of the state in the economic structure and what is the internal problem of the state\ulcorner Second, what is the role of the state in space economy (or in spatial structure)\ulcorner And last, what is the relation between the federal state and the local state in the U.S. and how does the relation form the urban policies and thus the urban and regional development\ulcorner The paper will be looking at how the political economy in the U.S. explains unevenly developed geographical phenomenon.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.232-242
• /
• 2021

The aim of this article is to examine the role of Gyeonggi Province in the industrial development in the Republic of Korea by taking a case study of the program of the national innovative cluster (NIC). In such program which has been for the purpose of the regional industrial development for non-Seoul metropolitan regions (N-SMRs) since 2018, the total firms' transactions were highly focused upon Gyeonggi Province and other Seoul metropolitan regions (SMRs). Especially, firms' transactions in 5 clusters of the total 14 clusters concentrated on Gyeonggi Province. Within this context, the future direction of this policy program for the regional industrial development and the national balanced development is more focused upon a win-win strategy between the SMR and N-SMRs rather than the dichotomy between them.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.307-330
• /
• 2016

This article aims to explain how Gangnam, as a model and standard of compressed urbanization in South Korea, was created. Gangnam and Gangnam-style urbanization need attention not only because they contrast with Korea's urbanization in the past as well as urbanization in the West but also they provide an important model in contemporary Korea's politics, economy and culture. However, there are little studies of how Gangnam's peculiar urbanism was created. To fill this gap, this article will first capture Gangnam's peculiar urbanism as a material landscape and sociocultural lifestyle. Gangnam-style urbanism is (a) materially characterized by high-rise apartment complexes owned by the middle and upper class for dwelling and asset growth and (b) socio-culturally characterized by political conservatism, public indifference, competition over academic performance, appearance, and fashion, and nightlife. Then it will show Gangnam's archetype was created in a spatially and temporally compressed way in and through the spatial selectivity of Korean anti-communist authoritarian developmental state strategies: (1) anti-communism led to the diffusion and accommodation of the population through apartments in Gangnam in the context of its confrontation with North Korea and the fast-growing population of Seoul; (2) military authoritarianism excluded the low-income class and the urban poor from urban development; and (3) the developmental state adopted selective housing policy which treated construction companies and the middle class preferentially through exceptional zoning and price distortions, promoting the construction of apartment in Gangnam and its resultant uneven development.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
• /
• v.19 no.2
• /
• pp.242-264
• /
• 2016

Tourism is a major sector of the national and regional economy in Southeast Asia endowed with rich natural environment and a variety of cultural and historical heritages. Tourism has been recognized as the industry without chimneys. However, as tourism sector is getting larger and being globally standardized, various problems such as environmental degradation as well as profits leakage from locals have been gradually aggravated. Against negative impacts from massive tourism various efforts have been tried and community-based ecotourism(CBET), seeking environmental conservation and community development at the same time, has emerged as a noteworthy alternative. By comparing the two cases of CBET in Indonesia and Cambodia, this paper aims to review the current status and future challenges of community development through ecotourism in Southeast Asia's rural villages. In the concrete, this paper analyses in-depth on case of JED(the village ecotourism network) in Bali, Indonesia and CBET project in Ramsar wetland reserves of Steung Treng province, Cambodia and founds out the possibility and main obstacles of community developmental strategy through CBET. Both cases have proven the positive outcomes in terms of environmental protection, local people's awareness improvement, and direct/indirect economic gain from CBET project. However, there are significant, but differentiated limitations in management capacities and stabilities of internal governance of two villages. Both villages are still in need of brisk networks with and assistance from the outside. In the conclusion part, this paper suggests CBET development program in Southeast Asia through Korea's social enterprises as one of the possible ODA programs(in tourism sector).

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
• /
• v.50 no.1
• /
• pp.73-90
• /
• 2015

This article focuses on geo-institutional differentiation and a multi-scalar analysis of emerging capitalist development in Laos. It discusses the impact of the Greater Mekong Subregion on new institutional economic and economic geographical arrangements. It demonstrates the usefulness of the varieties of Asian capitalism approach. The rubber industry was chosen to unravel emerging but various sub-national institutional arrangements linked to higher scale levels. Rubber is a growing agribusiness industry throughout the country, led by the insatiable demand from China. Overall, this study shows that the capitalist development of the rubber industry features much geo-institutional differentiation, due to the different strategies of Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese investors. Since Laos is still in transition from a state-led economy to something else, it is impossible at this to identify the exact number capitalisms. Yet, the evidence on rubber clearly lays bare the presence of multiple institutional arrangements. Without more inclusiveness, however, the implications for regional development are worrying. Exclusive arrangements will most likely lead to more uneven regional development and higher regional inequality. To refine theories on sub-national varieties of capitalism in developing countries it is instructive to consider more explicitly the notion of regional personal capitalisms and the complex interplay between national and regional states and relationships between capital accumulation and livelihood analyses.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.204-215
• /
• 2011

One of the major concerns to improve social-wellbeing is uneven spatial distribution of public service. The paper analyses the changes in the geographic distribution of public service facilities over time. The analysis is with a case study about JeollaNamdo Province including Gwangju Metropolitan City, 1985~2005. It employed eighteen proxies in different fields to measure public service and utilized cluster analyses, and various summary statistics including Schutz's coefficient and regression. The results show that overall social well-being has improved during the two decades and the gap between Gwanju City and the major cities in the JeollaNamdo Province has narrowed. However, the disparity between mainland and island areas still persists, calling our attention to the island areas.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
• /
• v.5 no.1
• /
• pp.77-90
• /
• 1999

This paper aims to understand the changing characteristics of the Kumi region as a locality in Korea through the regional geography of the world-system approach. To illustrate the changing regional characteristics, we analyzed the economic characteristics or position of the Kumi region within the world-economy and its spatial structure with three divisions of Korean capitalist periods: the Japanese colonial period ($1910{\sim}1945$), the social chaos period ($1945{\sim}1960$), and the economic development period ($1960{\sim}$present). In the Japanese colonial and social chaos periods, as Korean society was incorporated into the peripheral zone within the world-System (world-economy), Kumi also was made into a peripheral agricultural area. As a result, the Kumi region shaped the rural spatial structure without an urban center or regional dominant center. In the development period, influenced by the manufacturing-centered economic policy which boosted Korea as a semi-periphery within world-economy, Kumi also was developed into an industrial region(or semi-periphery) with the establishment of the Kumi electronic and textile industrial complex. This industrialization transformed the rural spatial structure of Kumi into a core (urban center)-periphery (rural area) structure. As we identified above, the regional geography of the world-system approach turned out to be a useful methodology to study a locality or internal region. Therefore we should make efforts to study such regions through the regional geography of the world-system approach.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.70-83
• /
• 2017

Traditionally, economic growth has been uneven over the space. It has also been true for the recovery from social and economic crisis in old industrial areas of the advanced economies. Even if many of such old industrial areas were seriously affected by de-industrialization, some areas have been showing progress, while others have not been so. While interpreting this phenomenon used to be a key issue in economics, main stream liberal economic theorists' explanation was uneven distribution of economic resources, such as raw materials, labour and money. However, some revolutionary economic theorists have brought in the concept of "history" in explaining the phenomenon. Path dependence theorists, for example, interpretate the emergence of different growth paths with the concept of historical accidents. This contrasts to the recent argument of the group of scholars suggesting the concept of "regional resilience," who argue that uneven growth and different growth paths are originated from different regional resilience. This paper introduces the backgrounds, characteristics and utilities of the two theories: path dependence theory and the concept of regional resilience.