Balanced Development in Globalizing Regional Development? Unpacking the New Regional Policy of South Korea

Abstract

Lee Y.-S. Balanced development in globalizing regional development? Unpacking the new regional policy of South Korea, Regional Studies. This paper critically examines South Korea's adoption of 'new regionalism' as a basis for its regional policy initiatives. It is argued that this new regional policy poses dualism between endogenism and exogenism, and as such fails to reformulate and re-articulate theoretical and policy views on the globalization of regional development. Instead of dualism, a concept of 'multi-scalar governance' has been developed as an analytical lens through which regional development in the era of globalization can be analysed. Based on this viewpoint, the drawbacks of the new regional policy - the problems of triangular inter-scalar coordination - are specifically reviewed. For this analysis, archival re-examination and in-depth interviews with policy-makers have been employed. [image omitted] Lee Y.-S. Le developpement equilibre dans la mondialisation de l'amenagement du territoire? Deballer la nouvelle politique regionale de la Coree du Sud, Regional Studies. Cet article cherche a examiner d'un oeil critique l'adoption par la Coree du Sud de la 'nouvelle regionalisation' comme cadre des actions de sa nouvelle politique regionale. Dans cet article, on affirme que cette nouvelle politique regionale presente le dualisme entre des approches endogene et exogene et, par la suite, ne reussit ni a reformuler, ni a rearticuler des perspectives theoriques et de politique sur la mondialisation de l'amenagement du territoire. A la place du dualisme, on developpe la notion de 'gouvernance a echelles multiples' comme une lentille analytique par laquelle on pourrait analyser l'amenagement du territoire a l'epoque de la mondialisation. Dans cette optique, on fait la critique en particulier des inconvenients de la nouvelle politique regionale - a savoir, les problemes de la coordination triangulaire a echelles multiples. Dans cette analyse, on reexamine des archives et interviewe dans le detail les decideurs. Gouvernance a echelles multiples Politique regionale Amenagement du territoire Coordination a echelles mutiples Reseaux de production mondiaux Nouvelle regionalisation Lee Y.-S. Ausgeglichene Entwicklung bei der Globalisierung der Regionalentwicklung? Eine Untersuchung der neuen Regionalpolitik in Sudkorea, Regional Studies. In diesem Artikel wird die Ubernahme des 'neuen Regionalismus' in Sudkorea als Grundlage fur regionalpolitische Initiativen kritisch untersucht. Ich argumentiere in meinem Beitrag, dass diese neue Regionalpolitik einen Dualismus zwischen Endogenismus und Exogenismus verursacht und somit nicht in der Lage ist, die theoretischen und politischen Perspektiven der Globalisierung der Regionalentwicklung neu zu formulieren und zu artikulieren. Anstelle eines Dualismus habe ich ein Konzept der 'multiskalaren Regierungsfuhrung' als analytisches Objektiv entwickelt, durch das sich die Regionalentwicklung im Zeitalter der Globalisierung analysieren lasst. Ausgehend von dieser Perspektive werd...

The Area-wide Economic Regions in Korea: Orthodox New Regionalism or Politically-inflicted Regionalism?

“…Under the locale-based allocation mechanism of national resources, the level of dissatisfaction with perfunctory devolution has increased among local actors. Then, to soften the locally arising dissatisfaction, the central government designated too many local clusters and local industries, which, in turn, led to a glut of institutions (Lee 2009b). As a result, a significant portion of national resources was pork-barreled among a large number of local jurisdictions.…”

“…The RIS worked as the channel through which the central government administered its numerous grant programs designed to promote knowledge and technology innovation and entrepreneurial growth (Jang 2008). It is ironical that, although regional policy in this period stressed the bottomup approach, emphasizing overwhelmingly local residents' self-reliance and responsibility, the central government predominated the entire policy processes of initiating, designing, and funding the institutional and physical criterion and requirements of regional development (Hassink 2004;Lee 2009b).…”

“…The prominent projects for spatially balanced development include the construction of a new administrative city into which a significant number of ministries and affiliated agencies of the central government are relocated, the construction of ten new innovation cities that host a handful of public corporations or quasi-public ventures, and the development of six new company cities (Lee 2009b). These initiatives remain a legacy of the past regionalist projects for the current government to take over their continuous execution.…”

“…In the amendment of the fourth CNTP, the overwhelming emphasis was placed on two regional policy agendas: one is the promotion of regional innovation systems and the other the extensive pursuit of balanced regional development (The ROK Government 2006). These policy agendas, which have attained hegemonic status under the Roh Moo-hyun's government, were purported to cultivate the self-sustaining indigenous capacities of local institutions as a necessary condition of regional development (Lee 2009b). To authorize the development and implementation of various imperative programs required to facilitate the attainment of the stated policy goals, the central government passed an enabling law, the Special Act for Promoting Balanced National Development (SAPBND).…”

“…In accordance to the SAPBND provisions, in 2003, the central government established the Presidential Committee on Balanced National Development (PCBND), which was responsible for putting forth the basic directions of balanced national development and various policies, assigning its due role as a mediator who can help related ministries cooperate and adjust their conflicting opinions (Lee 2009b). Under the auspices of the PCBND, a sizable state action was put into action to achieve the stated goals of regional development, getting the best out of the extant local administrative system rather than creating a new scale of regional entities.…”