Export Orientation in South Korea: How Helpful is Dependency Thinking to its Analysis?

SUMMARY This paper argues that dependency thinking has been applied to the South Korean experience of export orientation in both an uncritical and unhelpful fashion with the result that some of the most important features of the strategy and its domestic implications have been either misrepresented or overlooked. Contrary to what is often implied in dependency literature, the state has played an active role not merely in mobilising foreign and local resources for industrial development, but — in the Korean case — also in directing and controlling them, thereby positively affecting the country’s terms of integration into the world economy. What is more, the outcome of the Korean strategy is at variance with much of dependency thinking, given that some of the main problems associated with export orientation were at least partly avoided, and given that certain trends towards a greater degree of autonomy are discernable. In order to be useful in the Korean case the dependency approach requires substantial modification.