The domestic politics of international development in South Korea: stakeholders and competing policy discourses

Abstract

The paper examines the domestic politics surrounding South Korea's foreign aid policy. It delineates the institutional characteristics and strategic interests of key government and non-government stakeholders, and suggests an analytical framework to comprehend the country's aid policy regime. It suggests that two competing policy discourses exist – one emphasising ‘intellectual leadership’ and the other ‘ethical leadership’ as the key principle of aid policy. In practice, the country's political leadership promulgates a complex amalgam of these discourses in alignment with their own political imperatives and interests. The paper discusses ‘Global Saemaul Undong’ as such an example under the incumbent Park Geun-Hye administration.

Keywords:

• South Korea
• foreign aid
• Official Development Assistance (ODA)
• New Village Movement (Saemaul Undong)
• development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 http://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/aidtopoorcountriesslipsfurtherasgovernmentstightenbudgets.htm (accessed 31 October 2013). However, as of summer 2014, it seems the 2015 pledge is not likely to be met.

2 Lancaster (2007: 23) notes that such turf wars are common among donors: ‘the organization of aid influences the purpose of aid from within government through the unity and status of the competing voices supporting aid's various uses in government decision-making circles. Further, once established, the organization of a government's aid system institutionalizes the interests within government and, thus, the purposes of aid’.

3 The survey was conducted on a voluntary basis. Seventy-six per cent of KCOC members and 25 per cent of non-members responded to the questionnaire. Details on respondents and methodology can be found in the KCOC (2012a) report.

4 Lancaster (2007:140–1) also discusses similar concerns in the case of Japanese NGOs.

5 Since South Korea's 2010 accession broke more than 10 years of hiatus in DAC's enlargement after Greek membership in 1999, five new members were accepted in 2013 alone: Czech Republic, Iceland, Slovak Republic, Poland and Slovenia.

6 See Rosen (2014) on the Saemaul ODA case of Rwanda.

7 For instance, the country announced in early 2014 that it will join the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI).