I'm not sure. The underdevelopment theorists got South Korea very wrong as far as I can see. Specific conjunctural conditions meant that S Korea broke out of the trap of underdevelopment. I would cite a. the virtuous circle created by US aid to post war Japan and S Korea's specific relation to that growth b. the relatively insignificant political role played by the Korean working class (giving the elite much more room to manouevre)
both of which combined to make possible
c. the specific role of the S. Korean state as a (relatively) efficient organiser of investment.
Though the first stage of Korean development was subordinate to the US and Japan, it later managed to avoid the trap of becoming an exporter of primary goods with considerable industrial development.
Like Ireland, the industrial North was separated from the agricultural south by partition, but Ireland never had a strategic role in industrial development of its region that Korea did. That is why Ireland was still an agricultural exporter right up to the seventies. Like Korea Ireland's Labour movement was derailed by partition, but Ireland did not (until recently according to the Celtic Tiger theorists) play a strategic role.
Here I'm following Tony Kennedy's rather brilliant article from 1988, South Korea's take off (Confrontation).
Also worth looking at is Walden Bello's People and Power in the Pacific.
-- James Heartfield
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