Korea’s Use of ‘Smart power’: An Overview of Historical Development in the ‘Late Industrialisation’ Countries

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse the historical process of Korea to escape from the socio-economic backwardness, whereas other late industrialised countries are still in the process of development.The wise use of Korea’s ‘hard’ and ‘soft power’ synthesis gives birth to the new mode of power known as the ‘Smart Power,’ which plays the vital role in escaping Korea from ‘backwardness’. Korea not only stops at the phase of the ‘developed States’ in the field of late industrialization, but also creates the advanced State in the ‘techno-scientific’ field in the 21st Century. The literature or analysis of this issue tends to focus on the Statist perspective from International Political Economy and Post Colonialism ideas of cultural imperialism. State’s strong engagement in the market and the leadership ability to hegemon in the domestic politics basically leads to the development; whereas other late industrialisation states are unable to catch up because of their policies and weaknesses. However, it clearly ignores that it was not only the State enforcement but ‘power’ was used alternatively in the process of development i.e., the use of ‘smart power’.