The East Asian Developmental State and its Economic and Social Policies: The Case of Korea

The concept ‘the developmental state’ was introduced to explain the rapid economic growth of East Asian countries. In Korea, the developmental state emerged in earnest from the early 1960s, and combined with authoritarian politics in the 1970s, labelling the 1970s Korea as a typical form of the authoritarian developmental state. Korea’s developmental state was successful in achieving its core goals: economic growth and industrialization. However, during the years of economic development, social policies were largely underdeveloped or functioned, at the most, as a subsidiary of economic and industrial policies. Against the backdrop of these circumstances, this article aims to explore the economic and social performances of the developmental state in the 1960–70s Korea. In detail, this article answers the following research questions: What was the performance of economic policy in the developmental state of Korea during the 1960–70s? Was there any meaningful social policy in these years? Did social policy function as an instrument of economic development? How and why was social policy excluded in these years of economic development?