Domesticating Competitive Common Sense: Nation Branding Discourses, Policy-makers and Promotional Consultants in Korea

Abstract

ABSTRACT Why has the practice of nation branding and its competitive imaginary become common sense in Korea? This article retraces the domestication, in Korea, of nation branding into an unquestioned policy imperative and of a competitive common sense. It shows how, in Korea, nation branding emerged as a policy solution to four national urgencies in the post-democratisation political economic context. It was adopted in conjunction by the state and the chaebol to resolve obstacles to capital accumulation. Korean policy-makers hired promotional consultants to participate in agenda -making processes. However, these consultants were not hired by the Korean government to design Korea's branding policies. Their power was essentially cultural. Their discourses provided policy justification and functioned as a governing device to exhort citizens to accept global competition as an unquestionable social reality and the pro-capital reforms that are (supposedly) needed to cope with competition.