Mobilizing for Development: The Modernization of Rural East Asia by Kristen E. Looney

Author:Kristen E. Looney [Looney, Kristen E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: sociology, Development, Economic Development, Political Science, Social Science, Asian, Business & Economics, World, Rural
ISBN: 9781501748851
Google: NMetDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Cornell
Published: 2020-05-15T13:56:07+00:00

Outcomes and Legacy

The top-down, one-size-fits-all approach to implementation was reflected in the campaign’s outcomes. Even in the area of village infrastructure, the most popular and successful dimension of the campaign, things got carried away. National-level data show that the targets for major projects were often exceeded by a large margin (see table 11). Of course, the government may have wanted the official statistics to reflect a better-than-expected performance and just reported the targets and outcomes accordingly. Alternatively, it can be interpreted as evidence of excessive compliance. Take, for instance, the construction of village halls (community centers). This project supposedly originated at the village level; it was a creative choice made by farmers themselves rather than a mandate. Yet, assuming the data are correct, by the end of the campaign, there were actually more halls built than there were villages in Korea. In other words, the same projects were implemented everywhere and frequently taken to the extreme. Through the dissemination of visual propaganda and official guidelines for village beautification, the campaign produced a kind of rigid uniformity among villages. Indeed, the government’s commemorative Saemaul pictorials are filled with images of nearly identical-looking communities.131

Related to this point, the government was heavily involved in designing, planning, and constructing rural housing. After 1976, when the roof replacement program was completed, the focus of village environmental improvement shifted from basic renovation to new home construction. The government called for the reconstruction of all dilapidated housing within ten years (an estimated 544,000 homes out of 2.9 million).132 The Korean National Housing Corporation and the Ministry of Construction started releasing “standard designs for rural homes,” which were said to resemble European villas. The NACF disbursed home loans through construction companies as a way of controlling expenses and building materials. In a comprehensive study of rural architecture, Seong-jun Jang explains that because of high rates of migration, there was little voluntary or private-sector reconstruction of housing, so almost by default the growing stock of dilapidated homes became the government’s problem. During the 1970s, housing was increasingly treated as a “factor in the administration,” something that had to be “finished” instead of allowed to develop organically. It was also regarded as a redistributive good. Jang writes: “The underdevelopment of the rural area legitimized a paternalistic control over every detail ostensibly for the public good, for the enlightenment of the people and for a just distribution of national wealth.”133

TABLE 11. Results of the New Village Movement in South Korea, 1971–1980

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