CONVERGENCE OR DIVERGENCE? - The South Korean State After the Asian Financial Crisis

This study suggests that the government`s attempt to replace the developmental state by introducing neo-liberal axioms is slim. The state that is to emerge in consequence of the economic and financial reforms carried out by the Kim government is distinct from the neo-liberal regulatory state at the ideological level; moreover, the embedded characteristics of the developmental state hinder changes in the nature of the state. It is the paper`s argument that the economic reform that has been implemented by the Kim Dae-Jung government since its establishment (in 1998) is merely a form of `self-help` to correct those mistakes committed by the developmental state. Despite the neo-liberal reform attempted by the Kim government, the social, political and historical conditions in which a liberal regulatory state may be born are pre-mature, and the embedded legacies of the developmental state are far from becoming a thing of the past.