Study of Saemaul Undong and the Role of Government from the Perspective of Development State Theory : The usefulness of the developing country application

Since its inception in the early 1970s, Saemaul Undong(SMU) has played a pivotal role in bridging the economic growth gap between rural and urban Korea that eventually brought progress to the entire nation. SMU, a Korean community development movement, is not only recognized by the global community but also inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. This study seeks to investigate success drivers of SMU’s promotion processes from a role of government perspective. The research also intends to discover and propose implications of rural development processes in less developed countries via SMU of the 1970s from the viewpoint of the development state theory of Asian countries by Chalmers Johnson and Alice Amsden. Effectual execution of SMU is derivative of harmonic balance between mobilization and participation of the actors involved; the focus of this paper is rather on the analysis of the role of government centering around institutional mechanism and political and administrative efforts of the state. The proposed Globalization Strategy of SMU negates the traditional ODA model of material and human resource-based aid for rural development; rather it suggests emphasis on the role of government to establish an effective and sustainable administrative system governed by policy makers in order to achieve villager participatory rural development.