State power and public R&D in Korea: A case study of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology

Government-led R & D is a prominent characteristic of South Korean (hereafter refer to Korea) development. Korea's state-led mode of R & D and the workings of government-financed strategic R & D institutions in the past two and a half decades suggest the need for a close look at the dynamics of state power and local R & D in rapidly industrializing countries.;From a comparative policy analysis perspective, this study centered on why and how the Korean government pursued policies of strategic R & D institution-building, what are the performances of public R & D, and what constraints are there and why? These questions are examined through a case study of the Korea Institute of Science & Technology (KIST), the prototype for Korea's government-financed R & D centers for industrial technology and other think-tanks.;The central thesis of this dissertation is that policy environment variables exert a great influence on the workings of public R & D in Korea. The environment variables in this study are operationalized as Korea's bureaucratic-authoritarian political system, industrialization policies, and global systems of technology transfer and vertical production arrangements.;The KIST case affirms that local industry's choice of technology has been affected by the government's industrialization policies of export-promotion and technology transfer, as well as TNC power over the international circulation of technology. This situation has contributed to weakening KIST-industry linkage. President Park Chung-Hee empowered scientists to accomplish his regime's "fundamental policy" goal of industrialization, and also to enhance his political legitimacy in domestic politics. This certainly was an important latent function of public R & D in Korea. Presidential power (both overt and implied) was involved in resolving conflicts of interest which arose between KIST-developed technology vis-a-vis TNC technology, and functioned as leverage against TNCs to protect domestic R & D. The nature of government intervention in R & D in this study clearly indicates that the Korean model of government intervention in R & D goes beyond "promotional" to being "directive" in nature.