• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.453-466
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• 2011

The main aim of this paper is to explore the Korean development strategy in the context of trajectories of the economic development from 1961 to 2010. The fast and high growth in the period of 1961 and 2010 resulted from the 'export-oriented industrialization' through a combination of 'mass production-mass exports' and '(relatively) high productivity-low wages' up to the late 1980s, a mixture of 'mass production-mass exports' and '(relatively) high productivity-high wages' to the late 1990s, and a combination of the reformation of public and private sectors for overcoming the Korean financial crisis and the gradual improvement of the marketization and social safety net since 2000. With respect to this model of development, the global and national modes of regulation were established. Along with the formation of endogenous forces (as the national mode of regulation), that of exogenous forces (as the global mode of regulation) are the important rules of the game at the global level, which lead and stabilize the process of accumulation by the export-led industrialization in Korea. In this respect, the establishment of global modes of regulation is led by exogenous forces such as trade regulations, exchange rates, global-Korean industrial relations, and global regulations of loans to developing countries. On the other hand, the national modes of regulation are formed by endogenous forces such as the triangular relationship of the state, capital and labor.

• Analyses & Alternatives
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.2-12
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• 2017

Research on democratic transitions has relatively ignored the question of why some countries experience a regressive form of political pacts, while others do not. This paper develops a simple game-theoretic model to explain the phenomenon of collusive pacts in the process of democratization. Trasformismo is a term that refers to a system of political exchange based on informal clientelistic politics. The existing studies of the politics of trasformismo have emphasized the timing of industrialization and the tradition of strong state as conditions of the politics of trasformismo. However, not every late industrializers and not every strong states experienced some variants of collusive political pacts in their trajectories of democratization. In this paper, I contend that the politics of trasformismo is rather a generalizable pattern of political elites' behavior under particular circumstances. By developing a simple game theoretic model, this paper suggests the conditions under which political actors are likely to collude to a regressive form of political pacts. The model shows that the likelihood of collusion to a regressive form of political pacts is a function of a set of parameters. First, a higher level of incumbency advantage in electoral competition is likely to be associated with a higher probability of collusive political pacts. Second, a higher degree of the monopoly of political representation of political parties without a close link with a variety of societal forces is likely to induce collusive behavior among politicians. Third, the ruling party leader's expectations about the likelihood of a safe extrication are related to collusive political pacts. This paper then engages in a case study of the 1990 three-party merger in South Korea. The 1990 Korean case is interesting in that the ruling party created a new party after having merged with two opposition parties. This case can be considered a result of political maneuver in a context of democratization. The case study suggests the empirical relevance of the game-theoretic model. As the game of trasformismo and the case study of the 1990 three-party merger in South Korea have shown, the collusive political pact was neither determined by a certain stage of economic development nor by a particular cultural systems. Rather, it was a product of the art of trasformismo based on party leaders' rational calculations of the expected likelihood of taking governing power.