The Saemaul Undong Movement in the Republic of Korea


Book Description

The Saemaul Undong movement was a community-driven development program of the Republic of Korea in the 1970s. The movement contributed to improved community well-being in rural communities through agricultural production, household income, village life, communal empowerment and regeneration, and women's participation.This report examines the strengths and weaknesses of the movement along with contributing factors, including institutional arrangements, leadership influence, gender consideration, ideological guidance, and financing. It also reviews existing studies and government data on the movement, and presents excerpts from interviews with key persons engaged in the movement and useful lessons for implementing community-driven development initiatives in developing countries.







Public Administration and Policy in Korea


Book Description

The present Korean public administration and policy system has shown very significant differences compared to the system in 1970s. This book provides a comprehensive and holistic view on the development of Korean public policy and administration. Instead of dichotomizing the policy and administration, this book integrates two fields to provide a more holistic view on the Korean public sector. The book also attempts to overcome simplified explanations on the developmental state theory. The book aims to explain who the key actors are during the post-democratization period, how the administrative systems reform, and what kinds of social problems are transformed into public policies. This explanation suggests that the role of government shifts from a dominant actor to an actor within a complex network governance. This book will be a useful reference to anyone who wishes to learn more about the experience of the Korean development and the role of administration and policy.




Rural Development in South Korea


Book Description

After considering the problem of decentralizing rural development in South Korea generally, the authors analyze the proliferation period from 1970 to 1979 of Seemaul Undong--South Korea's so-called New Community Movement -- which was an attempt to achieve an integrated rural development program. The final chapter suggests directions for South Korea and draws implications for development elsewhere.










Exporting Urban Korea?


Book Description

A detailed examination of the “Korean development model” from its urban dimension, evaluating its sociopolitical contexts and implications for international development cooperation. There is an increasing tendency to use the development experience of Asian countries as a reference point for other countries in the Global South. Korea’s condensed urbanization and industrialization, accompanied by the expansion of new cities and industrial complexes across the country, have become one such model, even if the fruits of such development may not have been equitably shared across geographies and generations. The chapters in this book critically reassess the Korean urban development experience from regional policy to new town development, demonstrating how these policy experiences were deeply rooted in Korea’s socioeconomic environment and discussing what can be learned from them when applying them in other developmental contexts. This book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers in the field of urban studies and developmental studies in general, and in Korea’s (urban) development experience in particular. Chapters 1, 2, 4, and 12 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.




Local Government in Korea


Book Description




Seoul, Korea's Global City


Book Description

Seoul, as one of Asia’s rising global cities, has been a place where enormous changes in politics, industry, and culture have taken place over the last five decades. This book explores the new urbanism in Seoul from the perspective of global political economy, focusing on the contexts in which the city has witnessed the transformation of its population structure, such as the rise of the global urban middle class and the city’s increased nodal function in commodity chains. The burgeoning signs of Seoul’s status as a global city are discussed in terms of transnational tourism and the frequency of study abroad, the immigrant community, and cross-border cultural flows. Examining the labour structures within the city, economic growth policy, the role of advanced information technology, and neoliberal urban development, the authors also examine the local response in the city to its emerging status. A study of the development of the Korean capital and its deep embeddedness in the world economy, Seoul, Korea’s Global City will appeal to scholars of sociology, geography and economics with interests in political economy, urban studies and Asian studies.