The book, Late Industrialization, Tradition and Social Change in South Korea, starts with a paradox in Korea’s economic development: an ultra-modern industrial economy has been achieved, yet traditional networks of obligation and solidarity, such as blood, school, and regional ties have persisted, and even become more deeply reinforced, profoundly affecting the fundamental aspects of Korean politics and socio-economic relations. This book contends that this paradox is not accidental, and that the course of Korea’s late economic development shaped and entrenched these “primordial” ties into Korea’s politics, society, and economy. Thus, the persistence and predominance of these ties, what I call “neofamilism,” requires an explanation as to when, why, and how it arose. The analysis of the paradox reveals distinct social phenomenon which arose through interactions between the developmental state, traditional institutions, and economic tasks.
While much has been written about the economic success stories of late industrialization in the “Asian Tigers” of South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, the analysis of changes in social relations engendered by late industrialization has been strikingly absent. This book is an attempt to narrow the gap between the structural approaches of political economy and the relationship-centered approaches of sociology and anthropology in studies of late industrialization.
About the Author:
Yong-Chool Ha is Korea Foundation professor at the Jackson School of International Studies and Chair, the Center for Korean Studies at University of Washington. He received his Ph D at the University of California, Berkeley and moved to the University of Washington in January 2008 from Seoul National University. He served as president of the Korean Association of International Studies. He has written and published extensively on Korean domestic and international relations, North Korean politics, and Soviet and Russian politics in English, Russian, and Korean languages. His research interests are comparative late industrialization, late industrialization and IR, and changing elite-mass relations in late industrializing countries. Currently, he is editing a volume on South Korea’s modernization in a comparative perspective and working on a book, Extinction of the Soviet Union and Bruised America. His recent publications include: The Dynamics of Strong State (SNU Press, 2006), Late Industrialization, the State and Tradition: the Emergence of Neofamilism in Korea (2007, CPS), Colonial Social Change (ed.) (U. of Washington Press, 2013), and The International Impact of the Colonial Rule in Korea (UW Press, 2019), and Late Industrialization, Tradition and Social Change in South Korea (UW Press, 2024).
