South Korea’s Developmentalist Worldview

Abstract

The non-West is not only the object of the Eurocentric notion of development, but also the main contributor to its global hegemony. South Koreans, for instance, make a Eurocentric hierarchy between countries according to the criteria of their developmental discourse, the discourse of seonjinguk (advanced country). This paper examines the main features of the discourse of seonjinguk in contemporary Korea, focusing on the representations and identities of countries reflected in its basic concepts. Through the analysis of newspaper editorials, it shows that the discourse constructs a world dichotomised by idealised seonjinguk and marginalised hujinguk (backward country). In this discursive framework, the West is generally referred to as seonjinguk in relation to the belittled non-West. The identity of South Korea tends to be constructed as a country near seonjinguk or “on the threshold of seonjinguk” (“seonjinguk munteok”), which provides both senses of superiority over hujinguk and of inferiority over seonjinguk. This becomes a main discursive source that keeps Korea still under the project of modernisation, with the achievement of the status of seonjinguk as its historical national mission.