This study begins with a question of South Korea’s perception of globalization. It examines two facets of globalization: global civil society and global economy. It sheds light on the extent to which S. Korea has been committed to global civil society compared to the extent to which S. Korea has been integrated into the global economy.

Globalization in South Korea, as in other countries, has been regarded as the degree to which there has been integration into the global market. South Korea has been mentioned as one of the most successful examples of integration into the global economy.  It has not been seen as equally successful, though, in contributing to a global civil society. This study suggests that both features are necessary for true globalization. Positing a country as a member of international society has been missing, or at least disregarded, in the globalization discussion.

This study is predicated on two main pillars of globalization, adopted from Bull’s (1995) prospect for the emergence of international society and Keohane’s (1984) examination of the interdependent globalized economy. Although both theories are parallel because they highlight only one side of globalization, they are compatible because both recognize the interdependence bounded by a common set of rules and institutions in a globalized world.

This study attempts to demonstrate how different South Korea’s role and involvement in a globalized economy has been from its involvement in a globalized civil society.  This paper first explores South Korea’s change over time in the quantity and features of global philanthropy—the proxy for global civil society—and global trade—the proxy for global economy.  Second, this study conducts a social network analysis, employing UCINET, the software for social network analysis.  It compares the global philanthropy network with the global trade network—South Korea’s egocentric network in particular. It examines the density and degree-, flow betweenness-, and closeness- centrality of South Korea in both networks.

Concerning the data and proxy variables that exhibit the contribution of South Korea to global civil society, this study focuses on the global philanthropy—foreign aid donated by South Korea through international aid organizations. The observation embraces a coercive and a non-coercive commitment. As a coercive commitment, this study investigates the Official Development Assistance (ODA) data regarding the fulfillment of the contribution criteria of South Korea. As a non-coercive commitment, this study observes the amount of contributions to UN’s subsidiary body, OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) which mainly deals with global humanitarian issues including natural disasters and emergencies. The Financial Tracking Service (FTS) database, provided by OCHA, combines the donation for NGOs, bilateral aid, in-kind aid, and private donations.

With respect to the data and proxy variables that demonstrate the extent to which South Korea has been integrated into the global market, this paper examines the quantity of imports and exports, utilizing the Direction of Trade Statistics (DOT) of International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the overtime change of foreign direct invest (FDI), utilizing the data provided by OECD.

This study will contribute to the completion of the process of positing South Korea as a member of the globalized community by galvanizing global civil society features to the existing economy-centered globalization model. The consummation of the concept of globalization will bring more long term positive effects to the South Korean government and its people, as well as to the global world and its citizens.

Works cited:

Bull, Hedley. 1995. The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, 2nd ed. London: Macmillan.

Keohane, Robert. 1984. After hegemony: Cooperation and discord in the world political economy. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.