발전국가론 관점에서 본 지방경제 위기의 원인과 대응전략

Causes and Response Strategies of Local Economic Crisis from the Perspective of the Developmental State Theory

This study regards Korea’s economic development process as an export-led industrialization model, a type of developmental state, and understands the local economic crisis in terms of the limitations of this strategy. As the existing export-led industrialization strategy is no longer working and is creating a serious structural crisis in the local economy, we are seeking an attracting global companies model as an effective economic development strategy in response to the global economy. Whereas the export-led industrialization strategy focused on expanding exports by fostering domestic companies into conglomerates with international competitiveness, the global company attraction strategy focused on attracting domestic and foreign global companies to create global industrial clusters. Also, if the export-led industrialization strategy was unilaterally promoted by the central government, this strategy is characterized by taking governance that is led by the local government and supported by the central government. In this respect, the strategy for attracting global companies can be called ‘developmental local government model’ or ‘new endogenous development strategy.’ The endogenous development strategy utilizes local resources, companies, and technology to promote closed economic development within the region, whereas the developmental local government has the local leadership in economic development but pursue growth as a center of the global economy through clustering of global companies.