The South Korean Developmental Alliance between Business, Labor and Government

The remarkable story of South Korea’s economic development and poverty reduction has been a shining example for developing countries. The South Korean government has taken on, as its new global role, promoting the country’s experience of economic development that is distinct from early developers as well as other latecomers. It is noteworthy, however, when developing countries in the twenty-first century seek a South Korean-type development, that they are often looking at twentieth-century South Korean rapid industrialization and poverty reduction. Without raising the following questions in the process of learning from South Korea, the lessons would lose their due value. What was the developmental alliance that was critical for South Korea’s economic and social development in the twentieth century? What has changed in the twenty-first-century’s global and domestic political economy that has affected South Korea’s developmental alliance, and what is the new twenty-first-century developmental alliance? What are the lessons that twenty-first-century developing countries can take away from the South Korean developmental alliance?