ABSTRACT
As argued in Chapter 1, state-business relations in Korea need to be characterised as interaction between two different forms of power – the infrastructural power of the state and the structural power of capital. This chapter constructs a five-variable model that considers contextual factors such as national security, globalisation and social pressures to explain power relativities within the Korean developmental alliance. These variables, which condition the exercise of state infrastructural power and the chaebols’ structural power, illustrate the process of economic development. In this chapter, we seek to conceptualise the variables in order to explain the politics of Korean economic development. Each variable raises a line of inquiry into the shifting relations within the DA on the one hand and between the developmental alliance and external actors on the other.
