Power, Place, and State-Society Relations in Korea: Neo-Confucian and Geomantic Reconstruction of Developmental State and Democratization

No book has addressed the simultaneous phenomena of Korea’s rapid economic development and its vibrant democratization in a single coherent paradigm. The late developmentalist approach emphasizes the strong role of Korea’s state and bureaucratic efficiency but does not explain how political development was concurrent with the economic miracles in the Han River; modernization and dependence theories also fail to explain the aspect of simultaneity in this phenomenon. What these three theories...