[KS] Call for input: What is the one question about Korea you want answered?

[김석관]

Subject: Call for input: What is the one question about Korea you want answered? 

Dear colleagues, 

I am a senior research fellow at STEPI in Seoul and serve on the editorial board of the Global Issue Brief, a review journal of the National Research Council for Economics, Humanities and Social Sciences (NRC), the umbrella body for Korea's 26 government-funded policy research institutes. 

We are preparing a special issue, "Why/How Korea?", for December 2026 or January 2027. Its premise is that Korea's success and its discontents grew from the same root: the institutions behind compressed growth also produced the world's lowest fertility rate, a deeply dual labour market, and a population that rates its own life far below what outsiders expect. Fifteen review essays, each framed as a Why/How question, will examine both sides. 

The current list, in brief: Part 1, Success: manufacturing and new industries together; world-leading human capital; fast, affordable infrastructure; rapid adoption of advanced institutions; growth despite resource and geopolitical constraints; a non-Western culture entering the global mainstream. 

Part 2, Discontents: the persistent dual labour market; unhappiness amid outside praise; reliance on penal measures for social problems; a weak security strategy relative to economic stature; institutions that change faster than behaviour. 

Part 3, Lessons: is compressed growth replicable; how Korea escaped the middle-income trap and at what cost; what developing countries should emulate and avoid. 

My request: tell me, in one or two sentences beginning with "Why" or "How", the question about Korea you most want answered, whether from this list or your own. The questions we receive will open the issue as "The questions the world is asking about Korea", with credit to contributors unless you prefer otherwise. 

Please reply off-list to kskwan at stepi.re.kr. A full outline is available on request. 

With thanks, Seok-Kwan Kim, PhD
Senior Research Fellow, STEPI 
Editorial Board, Global Issue Brief (NRC) 
kskwan at stepi.re.kr
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