James C. Schopf

Many statist accounts of development, especially that which has occurred in East Asia, emphasize the autonomous role of the bureaucracy. Civil servants in these accounts are often assumed to give planrational guidance to economic forces. This argument fits nicely with the claims of some strong-state advocates that the messiness, conflict, and jockeying for position characteristic of democratic politics do disrupt the efficient contributions to development that a state-led or dirigiste system makes possible. This article, however, argues to the contrary, in favor of a different theoretical analysis to which comparative examination of Korean regimes gives some empirical confirmation. In Korea, authoritarian leaderships extracted funds and rewarded political supporters by using banks and bureaucracies to coddle inefficient but favored firms with close ties…….

Asian Survey, 41:5, pp. 693–715. ISSN: 0004–4687.