The State as Industrial Locator and District Builder: The Case of Changwon, South Korea

Abstract

AbstractThe state may be a major shaper of industrial geography, especially in developing countries. Defense procurement offers an opportunity to study its role. In locating military industrial facilities, we hypothesize that the state is responding to different priorities than would civilian firms—strategic concerns (protection, secrecy), proximity to military bases, preferences of military personnel. The resulting spatial pattern may segregate military activity from other civilian sectors, with both positive (interregional equity, new seedbed activity) and negative (expensive replication of infrastructure, barriers to interregional interfirm cooperation) consequences. The state, as industrial district builder, may foster or discourage firm networking and synergy. Strategic and discretionary factors predominated in locational choice of a new military industrial complex built in the 1970s in Changwon, South Korea, which now accounts for about 70 percent of the country's military output. While contributing...