Failure and success in South Korea and Taiwan: making policy for foreign workers and state–business relations in East Asian developmental states

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to explore state–business relations (SBRs) that have been established in the East Asian developmental states and assess how they have affected developments of foreign worker policies in Taiwan and South Korea. Based on regulation theory focusing on capture theory, this article regards foreign labour regulations as one of the institutional consequences of the developmental state, which emerged as an institutional structure in the East Asian states. The authors conducted qualitative analysis of public commentaries and government documents, and the findings reveal that while the regulation of foreign labour was generally marked by strong exclusionary practices in the East Asian developmental states due to their economic purpose characteristics, business-dominated SBRs in South Korea created a harsher institutional environment for foreign workers and less satisfactory policy outcomes than the state-dominated SBRs in Taiwan.