Acceso usuarios
Namji Jung
This article articulates the relational capacity of the nation-state, and its role in thegrowth of information and communication technology (ICT) entrepreneurs and industrycluster formation. In particular, it emphasizes the state’s strategic coupling with theprivate sector and social groups as the main forces that facilitated the rise of ICTentrepreneurs and the high-technology industry cluster in Teheran Valley (TV) in Seoul,Korea, during the post-1997 financial-crisis downturn. Historical analysis shows thatthe seemingly serendipitous rise of TV is an outcome of the dynamic interplay betweenthe state, ICT entrepreneurs and other social forces in the post-industrial restructuringprocess. Importantly, while the Korean state still maintained its role as a reformer ofindustry structure, it continuously and flexibly revised its mode of governing in responseto technological change and social demands, forming a governance system that I term‘relational governance’. During the industrial upgrading period from 1980 to the early2000s, the governance system for the ICT sector shifted from centralized planning toselective deregulation through close partnership with ICT entrepreneurs, and then laterto a more flexible mode of governance whereby the state re-centralized ICT policymakingfunctions while devising indirect ways of supporting emerging small and medium ICTenterprises.
