Cultural politics in the South Korean cultural industries: confrontations between state-developmentalism and neoliberalism

Abstract

This paper examines Korea’s cultural policy in tandem with the Korean Wave. It maps out the vital role of the Korean government in the Korean Wave phenomenon in the midst of the confrontations between neoliberal globalization and developmentalism. It investigates the ways in which Korea has developed the Korean Wave by analysing whether or not neoliberal ideologies have completely altered state developmentalism. More specifically, it studies the major characteristics of each administration between 1993 and 2016 in cultural policy, leading to the theorization of the nation-state in the context of the Korean Wave. Since studies of cultural policy assume that a wide range of policy tools are available to a government in promoting its cultural industries, it examines not only major cultural policy directions driven by each president, but also governmental practices executed at the level of the executive branch, in particular, the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism.