Seoul National University’s Center for Contemporary Korean Studies held an international conference titled “Korea as Symptom” over two days, on August 22 and 23. As the opening session of the conference, the Political Economy Team organized a session on Korean political economy at Youngwon Hall in the Asia Center at Seoul National University. Chaired by Professor Ha Yong-Chool of the University of Washington, the session featured the following four presentations.

In the first presentation, Dr. Lee Soohyun of King’s College London examined the gendered nature of young Koreans’ political attitudes and voting behavior in the 2022 Korean presidential election in her presentation, “Gendered Polarization among Young Koreans.” In particular, she pointed out that young men’s support for Yoon Suk Yeol was closely related to their attitudes toward the welfare state and gender equality.

In the second presentation, Dr. Park Myoung-joon of the Korea Labor Institute presented on “Tripartism and the Politics of Social Pacts in South Korea.” Dr. Park analyzed the institutional evolution and strategic dilemmas of tripartism and social pacts in Korea. He explained that Korea’s tripartite institutions have come to possess an ambivalent character, marked by formal incorporation on the one hand and limited substantive influence on the other, amid internal actor dynamics and external pressures.

Third, Professor Jitendra Uttam of Jawaharlal Nehru University compared Indian and Korean capitalism in his presentation, “Capitalism vs. Capitalism: India and Korean Experiences in Comparative Perspective.” He argued that although both countries share a common feature of state-led capitalism, differences in socioeconomic realities, state capacity, corporate structure, industrial policy, and bureaucracy have produced divergent outcomes. He further emphasized the role of civil society, which has been relatively overlooked in existing research, and offered policy suggestions for the Indian case.

Finally, Professor Kim Kyungmi of Sapienza University of Rome analyzed differences in the level of government digitalization in Korea and Japan in her presentation, “Digitalization in Japan and Korea.” According to the presentation, despite the two countries’ similar institutional frameworks, Korea shows a high level of digitalization, while Japan remains at a relatively lower level. To explain this difference, Professor Kim focused on the policymaking process and analyzed the factors that have shaped the digitalization gap between the two countries.

This session provided an opportunity to examine a wide range of issues in Korean political economy from an international perspective. It not only covered major contemporary issues in Korea, but also enabled participants to identify both the universality and specificity of the Korean case through comparison with cases from abroad.