Branding South Korea in a Competitive World Order: Discourses and Dispositives in Neoliberal Governmentality

Abstract

Since 2008, the South Korean administration has invested significant budgetary and political resources in its nation branding strategy, involving the private sector and Korean citizens in this endeavour. This article takes Korea as an exemplary case study of the way many states have enrolled their citizens, through nation branding, in the construction of a collective competitive identity. This study is based on an empirically deductive methodology, looking at the industry literature on nation branding, official sources, iconography and videos from the Korean nation branding campaign, and drawing on interviews with actors and observers of this campaign. I suggest that Korean nation branding should be seen as a continuation of the capitalist developmental project initiated by Park Chung-Hee in 1960s. Lee Myung-Bak’s nation branding campaign belongs to a series of strategies aiming at transforming South Korean into a successful global site of capitalist accumulation. This path dependency involves citizen mobilisation, and this is analysed through a Foucauldian prism: this article shows that although modalities of social control have evolved with the democratisation in 1987, they still play a role, combining coercion and non-coercive technologies of the self, in seeking to transform Korean citizens into competitive capitalist subjects.

국문초록:

대한민국 정부는 2008년부터 민간 부문과 국민들을 관여시키면서 국가브랜드화 전략에 막대한 예산과 정치적 자원을 투자해 왔다. 이 논문에서는 집단 경쟁적 정체성의 형성에 있어 여러 국가들이 국가 브랜드화를 통해 자국민들을 동원해온 방식의 모범적인 사례로 대한민국을 다룬다. 본 연구는 경험적으로 연역적인 방법론에 근거하여, 대한민국 국가 브랜딩 캠페인의 국가 브랜드화, 공식 자료, 도상학, 영상에 관한 선행 연구들을 살펴보고, 이 캠페인에 관여한 실무자들과의 인터뷰를 통해, 한국의 브랜드화 전략은 1960년대 박정희 대통령 때부터 시작된 경제개발정책의 연장선으로 보아야 함을 제안한다. 이명박 정부의 국가브랜드화 전략은 대한민국을 자본주의 축적의 성공적인 글로벌 장소로 탈바꿈시키는 것이 목적인 일련의 정책들에 해당한다. 본 논문은 이러한 경로 의존성이 수반하는 시민 동원을 푸코의 관점으로 분석하며, 그 결과 사회적 통제양상은 1987년 민주화와 함께 발달해 왔으나, 한국 시민들을 경쟁적 자본주의의 주체로 탈바꿈시키는 데 있어서는 여전히 위압적 기술과 비위압적 기술이 혼재하는 형태로 기능하고 있음을 보여준다.

Keywords:

• Nation branding
• competitiveness
• South Korea
• neoliberalism
• governmentality

주제어:

• 국가브랜드
• 경쟁력
• 대한민국
• 신자유주의
• 통치성

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Professor Ivan Manokha, Professor Justin Robertson and Professor Paul Cammack for their support, from the beginning of this research project to the completion of this article.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I use the term “formally” in a value-neutral way, in order to avoid questioning whether South Korea is a substantial democracy, a debate that has been revived lately by diverse scandals and threats to freedom of speech. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/04/pyongyang-south-korea-jails-politician and http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/670016.html. Whether any formal democracy in the world is indeed a substantial democracy remains largely open to debate.

2. All translations from French are my translations.

3. “What is essential is ownership, participation and maximum openness. The only way to make it durable is to have the public, which will always be interested in this. Transparency is crucial” (Personal interview, nation-branding consultant, London, March 2014).

4. The Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index is the most well-known nation-branding index. It is an annual survey based on a series of on-line interviews with samples of citizens (according to different criteria: age, gender, ethnicity, education) from 50 nations. Retrieved from http://www.simonanholt.com/Publications/publications-other-articles.aspx. The choice of nations “is based on the political and economic importance of the nations in global geopolitics and the flow of trade, businesses, people, and tourism activities” (Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index). It divides the nation brand into 6 categories: exports, immigration, governance, culture, tourism and people. Each consultancy usually sets up its own index, using a different methodology. Retrieved from http://www.brandfinance.com/knowledge_centre/reports/brandfinance-nation-brands-2013

5. The survey was developed by SERI and the PCNB in 2009, and is divided between the main categories of “substance and image”, and evaluates the nation brands of 50 nations according to eight categories (the Octagon): “economy/corporations, science/technology, infrastructure, policies/institutions, heritage, modern culture, people and celebrities”. Retrieved from http://www.google.com.hk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDQQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.seriworld.org%2F16%2Fqt_PdfDown.html%3Fmncd%3D0301%26pub%3D20130220%26seq%3D314&ei=VGO3VLvLIJSGuAS-roCADw&usg=AFQjCNH_UGcu_k4Yz612f4eJXW-7noBuDA&sig2=sybZHZvO_1W0_ncd7QSMZg&bvm=bv.83640239,d.dGY. The impartiality of the creators of this survey could be questioned. Moreover, the methodology does not seem dramatically different from the Anholt-GfK NBI’s.

6. A brand is successful when “public speaks to publics; when a substantial proportion of the population of the country – not just civil servants and paid figureheads – get behind the strategy and live it in their everyday dealings with the outside world” (Anholt, 2003, p. 123).

7. This is still an objective of the current South Korean administration. See http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2015/04/116_177719.html