ABSTRACT
Although science is commonly viewed as universal and an international ethos prevails among scientists, scientific work and careers are frequently linked to a nation and to utilitarian goals. This is not surprising, given the fact that major sources of funding for research and development (R&D) are overwhelmingly national. In particular, major national governments have viewed science and technology as national resources and attempted to mobilize them in the interest of each nation. Since the 1960s, the effect of science and technology on national economies has been a growing concern. A number of nation-states have made efforts to bolster economic competitiveness by promoting scientific advance. Science and technology policies in most countries have thus focused on how to better harness R&D and position strategic technologies for industrial competitiveness (Branscomb and Florida 1999, Elzinga and Jamison 1995, Ergas 1987, Okimoto 1989). Regardless of the common goal, actual policies depend heavily on the political and social
conditions in each country. In the U.S., the government’s involvement in the economy tends to be viewed with suspicion, and how much and in which way the state should be involved in scientific enterprise for economic development has been controversial (Branscomb and Florida 1999, Kleinman 1995). In contrast, countries where the central government has acted aggressively for economic development have been more likely to be involved deeply in scientific enterprise (Choi 1996, Evans 1995). This chapter discusses the ways in which the Korean government has mobilized science and
technology for Korea’s economic development and in so doing, how its utilitarian view of science has affected the norms and practices of Korean scientists. As an exemplar of developmental states, South Korea has long been known for its active role in economic development. The efforts of the Korean government to mobilize scientific and technological resources to move its economy beyond labor-intensive industries are not especially well known outside the country. In early 1960s, the Korean government set its first national plan for science and technology promotion, brought a number of Korean scientists back from abroad, and set up state-funded research institutes to assist local firms, which were struggling to enter knowledge-
based industries. Since the 1980s, it has also pushed university research toward applied and developmental research by distributing government fund in these directions. In this chapter, I argue that the Korean government’s efforts to mobilize science and technology for economic development not only had a distinctive impact on the institutional development of Korean science but also encouraged Korean scientists to embrace the utilitarian values of science that view scientific research as a tool for industrialization and nationalism in science that equates scientific advance with national progress. The utilitarian view and nationalism in science have been associated with Korean scientists’
adherence to “post-academic” norms and practices of science (Ziman 2000).The promotion of science and technology for economic development often went hand-in-hand with an emphasis on commercializing scientific research results. Science and technology studies (STS) research on privatization and commercialization of science in the U.S. has pointed to the ways that university-industry ties undermine academic norms of science, such as open sharing of research results and encourage post-academic norms of science, and the pursuit of applicability of research and intellectual property rights (Bok 1982, Croissant and Smith-Doerr 2008, Krimsky 2003, Rosenzweig 1985). However, in the Korean case it has been the role of government rather than university-industry relationships that has prompted movement away from academic and toward post-academic norms. In the U.S., for instance, academic scientists have become increasingly concerned with intellectual property rights (a post-academic orientation) as their research has connected them with private firms. By contrast, in Korea, the government has played a principal role in promoting the interest of academic scientists in applicability of their research and intellectual property rights. The Korean government has prompted scientists to identify the pursuit of applicability of their research with their contribution to national progress, which, in turn, helped them accept the norm of the pursuits for intellectual property rights and even the norm making secrecy among scientists acceptable. In the following pages, I first discuss the critical role of the Korean government in indus-
trial transformation of the country and the mobilization of scientific research for industrialization.Then, I describe the norms and practices of Korean scientists in terms of disinterestedness and communality and discuss the influence of the Korean government on scientists’ norms and practices.
