Inspiring Democratic Progress in Development Assistance: South Korea's Aid Policy Reforms via Civic Engagement

Abstract

Korea is particularly recognized for being an inspiring global actor, as the first country to evolve from recipient to donor, with a predominant emphasis on its admirable economic trajectory. Yet, as an official development assistance (ODA) actor, the long and arduous struggles for democracy rarely feature in its development policies, programs and practices. These struggles, exemplified by the role of civil society to free Korea of its authoritarian rule and also more recent examples, such as the candlelight protests resisting the corruption of the Park Geun-hye administration, deserve more consideration in its ODA interventions. When president Moon Jae-in – with its roots in progressive society – was elected in 2017, a period of closer collaboration between the government and progressive civil society commenced again. In this article we explore how and whether this renewed constructive relationship could help address some of the structural problems in Korean ODA. Moreover, we investigate how this improved relationship can be more fundamentally institutionalized in the field of Korean ODA, thereby also inspiring actors in developing countries.

Keywords:

• South Korea
• official development assistance
• civil society
• partnership
• governmentality
• hegemony

Notes

1 Similar patterns of political rapprochement between the state and civil society can be confirmed under president Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung, both of who are featured as democratic leaders in Korea’s political history (e.g. Chang and Shin 2011).

2 The former secretary general of YMCA Busan joined the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) as a vice president and the former member of the National Assembly, who had been renowned as a proactive civic activist for women's rights, was appointed as the president of KOICA.

3 Refer to comments of the Korea Civil Society Forum on International Development Cooperation (KoFID), https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mTUq2weSiLxntR_zk4T1ogPvZiHLOYtvug3_250H8nI/edit.

4 The K-town project in Myanmar which featured in the Choi Soon-sil scandal. This corrupt advisor of President Park used her influence through the Mir Foundation to get a building contract for a Myanmar-based Korean convention centre, awarded to a company in which she bought stock in name of her niece. It eventually became one of the factors in the impeachment of president Park. See Kim (2018).

5 Represented by CSOs, the existence of the third sector is essential to attaining a whole-of-society network approach in implementing development goals. The existence and importance of the third sector has been underscored as ‘development actors in their own right, with their own priorities, programmes and partnership arrangements’ (OECD, 2009, p. 13). Functions of the third sector are mostly represented by service delivery and advocacy with a rights-based approach (Kim, 2008; Lewis, 2014). Recognized in earnest since the 2008 High-level Forum on Development Effectiveness in Accra, third sector participants were officially proclaimed to be essential agents of development cooperation. CSO per se is considered more broad and comprehensive entity than non-governmental organization (NGO) focusing on the role of watch-dog against the government activities, or non-profit organization (NPO) limiting the purview of its activities to the business sector. CSO covers up not only the whole spectrum of civic engagements including NGO-based and NPO-based performances, but also political advocacy and service delivery, both of which development CSOs normally take as their main missions (Kim, 2017b). Therefore, this study prefers to using the term CSO, rather than NGO or others.

6 For example, Ohmynews, launched in 2002 with the motto of ‘every citizen is a reporter,’ became one of the major pillars under an alternative online public sphere. http://english.ohmynews.com/.

7 http://www.peoplepower21.org/English/39340

8 This poor sustainability mirrored the findings of research by Nauta and Lee (2017) regarding Korean ODA projects in Rwanda. In both the agricultural and the ICT sector Korean ODA actors prioritized the construction of physical infrastructure (Saemaul community halls, irrigation system, ICT college) without sufficient contemplation, policies and adequate systems for sustainability (maintenance, community ownership, funding/profitability after Korean departure).

9 ‘Expand the Scope of Information Disclosure’ KCOC/KOICA (2019, p. 7).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Research Foundation of Korea [grant number NRF-2018S1A5B8070773].

Notes on contributors

Wiebe Nauta

Wiebe Nauta (Phd) is a sociologist of development at Maastricht University. He served as the Programme Director of the Master Programme Globalization & Development Studies at Maastricht. His research topics include South-South Development Cooperation, an East Asian development model in Africa, transnational links between civil society organizations and activist social movements, and so forth. He recently edited Researching South-South Development Cooperation: The Politics of Knowledge Production (Routledge, 2019) and published various book chapters and research articles.

Jaekwang Han

Jaekwang Han (PhD) is Chairperson of People's Initiative for Development Alternatives (PIDA), which is a Korean advocacy CSO, and Adjunct Professor of Graduate School of Public Policy & Civic Engagement at Kyung Hee University. He teaches international development and civil society and his articles appear mainly in International Development and Cooperation Review. He is a member of the Korea Association of International Development and Cooperation (KAIDEC).

Taekyoon Kim

Taekyoon Kim (DPhil, PhD) is Professor of International Development at the Graduate School of International Studies, Seoul National University. He teaches international political sociology, with a special focus on development and peacebuilding. His articles appear in Oxford Development Studies, Journal of Democracy, Global Governance, Voluntas, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific among several others. He is Vice Dean for Public Affairs and Communications at Seoul National University and a member of Korea's National Committee on Sustainable Development