South Korea’s Developmentalist Worldview

Abstract

The non-West is not only the object of the Eurocentric notion of development, but also the main contributor to its global hegemony. South Koreans, for instance, make a Eurocentric hierarchy between countries according to the criteria of their developmental discourse, the discourse of seonjinguk (advanced country). This paper examines the main features of the discourse of seonjinguk in contemporary Korea, focusing on the representations and identities of countries reflected in its basic concepts. Through the analysis of newspaper editorials, it shows that the discourse constructs a world dichotomised by idealised seonjinguk and marginalised hujinguk (backward country). In this discursive framework, the West is generally referred to as seonjinguk in relation to the belittled non-West. The identity of South Korea tends to be constructed as a country near seonjinguk or “on the threshold of seonjinguk” (“seonjinguk munteok”), which provides both senses of superiority over hujinguk and of inferiority over seonjinguk. This becomes a main discursive source that keeps Korea still under the project of modernisation, with the achievement of the status of seonjinguk as its historical national mission.

Deconstructing the periphery: Korean degree-seeking students’ everyday transformations in and through India

“…. .’ (Kim, 2014: 383). The self-subalternisation by South Korea based on its perception of the United States was discursively reproduced throughout its modern history (Kim, 2012).…”

“…In expounding this, Kim’s (2014) seon-jin-gug (advanced country) discourse is particularly useful as it illustrates South Korea’s ideological complex of its imagined position in the world. Said to be largely Westcentric, but particularly US-centric (Cho, 2007), South Korea sets seon-jin-gug as its national goal and accordingly ‘constructs a world dichotomized by idealized seon-jin-gug (West) and marginalized [ hu-jin-gug (backward country)] (non-West).…”

“…The self-subalternisation by South Korea based on its perception of the United States was discursively reproduced throughout its modern history (Kim, 2012). With its ‘middling view’ of itself as superior over the periphery but inferior to the centre, it is then assumed that Koreans will naturally be attracted to the West – its model for the kind of advancement that it aspires to for itself – while bipolarising its spatial perceptions of the ideal and the marginal (Kim, 2014).…”

Remaking the Myth of the ‘Trade Warrior’: Searching for South Korean Masculinity in the Philippines

“…The latter point can be related to the deep-seated ideology of economic development in Korea that understood the direction of economic development was universal and linear. The Korea sociologist Chong-t’ae Kim (2014) argued that the Park Chung-hee regime indoctrinated the developmentalistic ideology of linear economic development from developing countries ( hujin’guk ) to developed countries ( sŏnjin’guk ) to cultivate its citizens to work diligently to catch up with developed countries. According to this idea of linear economic development, Korean men had unique and valuable knowledge in that they can accurately predict the development path of developing economies as they already experienced such process.…”

“…Some interviewees explained that their experiences of Korea’s economic development from one of the least developed economies to one of the top provided them a competitive edge. For instance, Jun-sik said about Korean men like him, “As we succeeded in developing the economy from the very bottom to the top in the world by our own hands, we knew what the Philippines economy would evolve into—we have competitiveness.” Resonating Kim’s (2014) argument that the Korean developmental ideology was rooted in the belief in linear and singular economic development, the Korean middle-aged men showed confidence in accurately predicting where to go and what to do based on their own experiences of economic development, specifically as international businessmen.…”