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Scottish Centre for Korean Studies

 Distinguished Lecture Series

East Asia's Developmentalist Scrambling for the Global South: 'Asian Traps' of Aid Competitions and Fragmentations

Taekyoon Kim

(Seoul National University)

 

Wednesday 11^th June

1500-1700

1.06, 50 George Square 

 

 

Abstract: This lecture sets out to identify and explore a toxic concept of ‘Asian traps’ that are anchored in East Asia’s developmentalism-obsessed aid policies, with the particular reference to three Asian donors – China, Japan, and South Korea. Through their historical paths of modernization, three donor countries commonly share the state-led economic growth strategies in accordance with the developmental state thesis, albeit differently applied. The developmental state in East Asia not only justified the embedded symbiosis between governments and non-state actors – particularly, business sector – by emphasizing economic development as nation’s top priority, but also overshadowed democratic transitions as the secondary concern of the state. Legacies of East Asia’s developmental approach to economic modernization have been deeply entrenched as a strategic backbone of three Asian donors’ developmentalist foreign assistance policies towards the Global South, which would create the root cause of Asian traps. In this regard, comparing three Asian donors’ developmentalism-centred aid strategies will be examined by tracing the commercialised patterns of the development state in the field of development aid across China, Japan and South Korea.

Bio: Taekyoon Kim is the Director of Peace Cooperation at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies (IPUS) and Associate Dean of the Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS) at Seoul National University (SNU). He received his D.Phil. in Social Policy and Intervention (social development) from the University of Oxford, and another Ph.D. in International Relations (international development) from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. His research interests cover international development, peace studies, global south studies and international political sociology, and his scholarly works appear at various peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Democracy, International Sociology, Global Governance, as well as book projects such as The Korean State and Social Policy (Oxford University Press, 2011).

The event is in-person and free to attend. Registration is not required.