Dictatorship and development – a successful experiment in Korea in the Park Chung-Hee era (1961-1979)

Abstract

In the 1960s - 1970s of the last century in East Asia, many new economies emerged, including Korea. The boom of growth and the spectacular success of South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and to a smaller extent, Malaysia, Thailand attracted the attention of researchers and socio-political commentators. As a common phenomenon hard to be denied, the stage of high development (success in industrialization and modernization), except for that in Japan, was tied to a political structure model which enabled high concentration of state power into an individual or a group of individuals who used the power (violence) to carry out social management and socio-economic development programs. This was called dictatorship by academic circles. The question is that how could such a kind of undemocratic totalitarian dictatorship become the organizer, the motivation to promote the development of the society? The success of Korea in the authoritarian dictatorship Park Chung-Hee era (1961 - 1979) could give us an explanation. The paper focuses on two issues:

1. The appearance of dictatorship in Korea – the obviously choice of the management model of a totalitarian society?

2. Park Chung-Hee dictatorship with the process of social modernization – success and tragedy.