Territorialized party politics and the politics of local ecomomic development: State-led industrialization and political regionalism in South Korea

Abstract

Abstract For the last three decades, the politics of regionalism has significantly influenced South Korean politics. This paper addresses the historical origin of regionalist politics in South Korea, with focus on the sociopolitical and institutional conditions under which territory-based political cleavages first emerged in South Korea in the early 1970s. In particular, it examines the ways in which the politics of local economic development in South Korea was turned into a politics of regionalism in the early 1970s, within the specific context of uneven regional development that was attributable to the territoriality of state regulation and representation, and the territorialization of party politics. More specifically, the analytical focus is on examining: (1) how the territoriality of state-led capitalist industrialization in South Korea was responsible for increased regional economic disparities in the 1960s and 1970s; (2) how the politics of local economic development, organized in different regions in reaction to state-conditioned uneven regional development, contributed to the construction of regionally differentiated political and economic interests; and (3) how political parties constructed territorialized social bases by utilizing regionally differentiated political and economic interests, thereby, leading to the rise of regionalist politics.