Heterogeneity as the source of the state's resilience: the case of spatial planning under state-led neoliberalization in South Korea

Abstract

Existing theories on the state and neoliberalism demonstrate that the state is resilient enough to restructure itself under neoliberalization of the economy. These theories, however, do not explain exactly how and why the state can be resilient. Using the case of spatial planning in South Korea around the turn of the millennium, when neoliberalism was an apparent consensus and the economy clearly was neoliberalized, this paper attempts to demonstrate that the source of the state's resilience is the heterogeneity of the neoliberal consensus. Neoliberalism, as a geographically and historically specific ideology in South Korea, combines political liberalism, economic conservatism, resistant regionalism, and localism. This heterogeneity within the neoliberal consensus in the ruling block allows the state to interpret neoliberalism in such a way that it can maintain a strong hold on its spatial economy by combining various spatial planning measures and simultaneously adjusting its spatial economy to accord with the neoliberalization of the global economy.

Keywords:

• neoliberalism
• state theory
• South Korea
• developmental state
• regional planning

Notes

1. ETNEWS 2005, 12 December, www.etnews.co.kr/news/detail.html?id=200512120033. Retrieved February 19, 2006.

2. Hankyoreh 2005, 26 December, www.hani.co.kr/kisa/section-003001000/2005/12/003001000200512261833457.html. Retrieved February 19, 2006).

3. In other areas, however, policies that are not compatible with, or sometimes contradictory to, neoliberalism can be found easily. One of the prominent examples is the government's welfare expenditure. The central government's welfare budget more than doubled in eight years, jumping from 0.8% of the GDP in 1997 to 1.7% in 2005 (Choi, 2005); 1.7% is less than half of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development average, but as South Korea's population ages, the number of recipients of retirement benefits will grow, and the welfare budget to GDP ratio should approach the European level in 20 years, without introducing any new benefits. This fast growth, which is difficult to find in advanced capitalist countries, led some of the authors to conclude that South Korea's welfare regime is approaching the continental European model of social welfare (Kim, 2011). While there are debates about the nature of the welfare expenditure, the emerging consensus among experts on South Korean social policy is that this welfare growth is not explained by the trend of neoliberalization the South Korean state is following.

4. However, the neoliberal character of the Roh Administration's spatial policies should not be overstated. Like any other policies, the Roh Administration's spatial policies are constructed through political processes and do not directly reflect a pure ideology. Among the spatial strategies that the Roh Administration deployed, some are categorized as ‘Cohesion Policies’ as stipulated by ‘Chiyok Gaebal Saop Gaejong (the Regional Development Project Account)’. Under this project account, the national state's aid was given to underdeveloped regions and rural areas. The state, however, warns that ‘cohesion policies’ should be used with caution because too many will make localities dependent on the national state (Nam, 2008, p. 46).