| ID | 140251 |
| Title Proper | Debating economic democracy in South Korea |
| Other Title Information | the costs of commensurability |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Doucette, Jamie |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | In the 2012 Korean presidential election, both liberal and conservative parties fought their campaigns on the slogan of “economic democratization,” marking a strong departure from past presidential elections and the growth-first policies of the then-incumbent conservative administration. Both parties pledged to tackle growing social polarization and the concentration of economic power by reforming the corporate governance of Korea's large, family-led conglomerates (chaebol), to the degree that chaebol reform itself became synonymous with economic democratization. This focus led to a series of heated exchanges among liberal-left reformers about the vision of economic democratization being promoted, with one camp favoring the creation of a “fair market” through the restructuring of the chaebol and another promoting the protection of the chaebol’s management rights over their affiliates as a desirable strategy for the creation of a Korean welfare state. This essay examines the long-standing tensions between these two liberal-left perspectives and argues that the capital-centric and market-based visions these camps promoted risk confining intellectual debate over the meaning of economic democracy within boundaries that serve dominant political interests. |
| `In' analytical Note | Critical Asian Studies Vol. 47, No.3; Sep 2015: p.388-413 |
| Journal Source | Critical Asian Studies 2015-09 47, 3 |
| Key Words | South Korea ; Welfare State ; Corporate Governance ; Democratization ; Economic Democracy ; Neoliberalism ; Developmental State ; Financialization ; Chaebol |