Toward People-centered Development: A Reflection on the Korean Experience

Abstract

By reflecting upon Korea's state-led development, its socio-economic consequences, and its current reform efforts and trends, this article calls for reconstructing the state and redefining the identity of its political economy towards people-centered development. Crafting a democratic and empowering dirigisme and institutionalizing democratic values such as public trust and rule of law constitute the nation's pressing task in its quest for a good society. However, dirigiste choice of growth over equity at an early stage of development process may not be easily reversible at a later stage. Dirigiste development and undemocratic governance create entrenched, self-sustaining interests and structures that no amount of reform politics as usual can touch.