Comparative Analysis of Economic Development in Colonial and Post-Colonial Egypt and Korea

Abstract

The paper compares the economic development experiences of Egypt and (S)Korea during the colonial and post-independence periods. It shows that the two most important requirements of modernization are: first, an external condition related to the crucial role that global and regional powers play in promoting or hampering the developing country's efforts to modernize. The second is an internal one showing that a strong government is usually more efficient in carrying out successful economic policies than a soft one. This is especially true during the early stages of industrialization.Keywords: Great powers politics, British/Japanese colonial policies, Strong/soft government. Efficient bureaucracy. Quality of factors of production. General Park, Colonel Nasser. Inculcation of modern valuesJEL Classification-. Ol, N4, F5, 057, P5I. IntroductionThe modern history of the Middle East and East Asia is rich in terms of the number of attempts at modernization. Unlike economic successes in East Asia, most attempts in the Middle East have ended up in failure. The disparity in the economic performance between the two regions has sparked fierce debate among scholars and policymakers. Presently, students of modernization are privileged to have a wealth of developmental legacies in many countries to examine. Yet, there is no serious study that provides a detailed analysis comparing modernization attempts in East Asia with those in the Middle East. This work is undertaken to overcome the lack of attention to comparative studies.In this article we will compare the political economy of modernization through the long lens of history in Egypt and Korea. There are three main reasons for choosing these two nations for comparison. First, for long, these two traditional societies had been isolated from interaction with modernizing forces. This was true for Egypt for the period under the Mamlukes and the Ottoman Empire (1517-1798). Korea was called Hermit Kingdom due to its isolation for five centuries (1392-1910) under the Yi dynasty. Culturally, Egypt was heir to Islamic conservatism and Korea to Confucian conservatism.Secondly, Egypt and Korea are both resource-poor. At the dawn of the twentieth century, these two countries had similar cultivated land endowments. In addition, the size of their populations was also similar (Table 1). This allows for a 'controlled' study.1Thirdly, by the first decade of the last century, both nations were already occupied by foreign troops, Egypt by the British in 1882 and Korea by Japan in 1910. Egypt gained its independence in 1954 and Korea was liberated and divided between North and South in 1945.One major objective of this paper is to compare the changes in the quality of the factors of production in Egypt and Korea during the colonial period and study the effects of these changes on the two nations' postindependence economic development trajectories.It is interesting to note that in the last quarter of the 19,h century. Egypt was superior to Korea In terms of the quality of the factors of production. This was because of two previous modernization attempts initiated by the national government in Egypt before the British occupation. The first was by the father of modem Egypt. Mohamed Ali (1805-1848) who wanted to establish the country as a regional power. The second was by Khedive Ismail (1863-1879). who strove to make Egypt part of Europe. The two attempts were aborted by the European powers, defeating Ali's ambitious naval fleet in 1840, as well as forcing Ismail to resign for his irresponsible over-borrowing.2At the end of the twentieth century, there was a wide gap between that two nations per capita income (Figure 1).Table 2 makes clear that South Korea's per capita income was more than six times that of Egypt in 2001.3Next, we analyze the changes in the quality of the factors of production in the two countries during the colonial period. …