The changing conception of industrial policymaking in korea

Abstract

The conception of industrial policymaking in any country reflects its peculiar political, economic, and social context. As political and economic democratization proceeds in Korea, many important changes in industrial policymaking have recently taken place. But its fundamental change has been resulted from a coherent industrial policy reform undertaken during the early years of Chun's regime to correct policy failures and legacies left by the highly politicized heavy industrialization drive in the 1970s. It would be now fair to say that Korean industrial policy has come to bear a closer semblance to that of advanced industrialized countries. The concept of industrial targeting, which has long dominated the industrial policymaking in Korea, seems to have lost its traditional luster. On the other hand, political influence has begun to overshadow technocratic judgments in the making of industrial policy.