Green Growth, Neoliberalism and Conflicting Hegemonic Interests: The Case of Korea

Abstract

The 2009 South Korean Presidential Committee on Green Growth set a long-term vision for South Korea to “go green.” The Green Growth Korea (GGK) initiative has been instrumental in the formation of the international Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI). The initiative is heralded as a qualitatively new and exportable growth paradigm. The paper argues that the narrative on “newness” is a myth and that green growth represents a continuity of elite-led responses to the contradictions of capital accumulation in the South Korean developmentalist state. These splits in hegemonic “leadership” are a result of the uneven relationship between domestic and transnational Chaebol interests, and the political interests of the developmentalist state and the promotion of South Korea as “global Korea.” This is creating an economy based on a developmentalist model that has provided the conditions for a decoupling of the economy from big business interests, which have been integral to developmentalist success. These economic interests remain reliant on the economic and political policies of the developmentalist state, which these interests are undermining. Green growth is an elite-led narrative that obscures these elite conflicts under the banner of Korean green growth nationalism.