| Date | Time | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday, September 24, 2015 | 2:00PM - 4:00PM | Seminar Room 208N, Munk School of Global Affairs 1 Devonshire Place M5S 3K7 |
In explaining the economic success of the East Asian countries, the developmental state thesis highlights the positive role of the state intervention in markets. In particular, it sees as an essential condition for the East Asian economic mira¬cle the capacity of the autonomous national bureaucrats, which are assumed to be independent of particular economic and social interests, to lead the policy-making process on behalf of the nation as a whole. More specifically, the state’s industrial policies have been seen as a crucial means through which the national bureaucrats have been able to guide and discipline firms to play a role in national industrialization. This kind of explanations, however, lacks serious under¬standings of the spatial aspects of industrial development due to its limited focus on aspatial elements of industrial governance. Industrial activities actually take place at certain locations, and necessarily require the infrastructures fa¬cilitating the spatial flows and movements of materials, information, money, and so on. Indeed, constructing industrial complexes was an essential spatial technology that the Korean state deployed to promote national industrialization in the 1960s and the 1970s. Without paying sufficient attention to the spatiality of industrialization, the developmental state thesis may pro¬vide a biased view on the Korean industrial development. In particular, its emphasis on the leadership role of the state in national industrialization may not be easily justified, once the complicated socio-spatial processes through which the industrial complexes had been constructed are carefully examined.
With this problem orientation, this paper aims to explore the ways in which the Masan Free Export Zone was developed in the late 1960s. In contrast to the developmental state thesis, which relies on the neo-Weberian assumption of the state-society separation and the methodological nationalism, this research borrows the strategic-relational view to the state, which sees the state actions as an outcome of complex interactions among social forces acting in and through the state, as well as the multi-scalar approach to the political economic processes, in order to better grasp the spatiality of Korean industrialization. In particular, this paper will examine the ways in which the construction of Masan Free Export Zone was planned, implemented and materialized through complex and contested interactions among social forces at various geographical scales act¬ing in and through the state.
Bae-Gyoon Park is a Professor of Geography in the College of Education at Seoul National University in Korea, and also serves as the Head of International Relations at Seoul National University Asia Center. He received his PhD in Geography at Ohio State University in the USA after doing his BA and MA in Geography at Seoul National University. He had also taught in National University of Singapore as an assistant professor of Geography. He is now a Co-editor of Territory, Politics, Governance, and a member of the editorial boards of Political Geography, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, and Geography Compass. His recent research is focused on multi-scalar understandings of East Asian developmental states and developmental urbanism in East Asia. He has recently edited an English-written book, entitled “Locating Neoliberalism in East Asia”, and several Korean-written books, including “Gukkawa Jiyeok(State and Localities)”, “Saneok Gyeongkwanui Tansaeng(The Birth of Industrial Landscapes)”, and so on. He has also published papers in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Political Geography, Economic Geography and Critical Asian Studies.
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