From Nation Building to Nation Branding: Economic Restructuring through Soft Power in South Korea post-1997

• In Event: 264 - Regular Session. Economic Globalization

Abstract

This article examines the efforts of South Korea to overcome financial crisis in 1997 through nation branding strategies. Through a series of state-led projects supported by transnational corporations, media, non-profit organizations and individual citizens, South Korea was able to produce positive international images as a technically advanced and culturally proper nation through nation branding strategies. In order to place new efforts within a historical context, I trace an industrial history of South Korea back to the 1960's and divide fifty year history into three stages based on political and economic structural changes and oversea cultural policies: nation building (1961-1987), transition (1987-1997) and nation branding (1997- 2012). By examining each stage, I will analyze how economic and political changes had interacted with social policies aimed first at domestic integration and later at marketing the nation as a brand. However, particular attention paid to the three most recent administrations that promoted nation branding strategies. The projects were originally designed by Kim Dae-Jung administration to attract foreign investment as following a neo-liberal path, guided by the IMF, post-97’s crisis, and actively developed by the following two administrations (of Roh Moo-Hyun, and Lee Myung-Bak); the government thus began to play a role as a facilitator of the new global order, through the promotion of new industries(e.g. cultural industry, particularly Hallyu, IT and BT).

Author

• Jinwon Kim, City University of New York-Graduate Center