South Korea's Foreign Aid

The Domestic Politics of Middle Power Diplomacy

Hyo-sook Kim

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000516982
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Categoria: Politica asiatica

Kim examines the impact of domestic politics in accomplishing South Korea's middle power diplomacy through the provision of foreign aid.

Since the 2000s, the rise of emerging nations as donors has brought about a remarkable transition in the international development community. South Korea has closed the gap with other Development Assistance Committee donors in terms of the quality of its aid. In doing so it has taken on a more active role as a middle power, acting as an agenda-setter and a mediator in the field of development and many other wide policy areas including trade, finance, environment, security, and peacekeeping. What factors, then, have encouraged South Korea to maintain and enhance the existing international development system? Not only how they behave, but also how their behaviour is determined is essential to truly understand the impact of emerging donors on the existing order. Kim highlights the significance of domestic politics in determining South Korea's foreign aid behaviour, framing it in terms of South Korea's wider middle power diplomatic strategy.

This book will be of great value to scholars of South Korean politics and foreign policy, as well as to international relations scholars with an interest in the foreign aid policy of middle powers.

1 Introduction and the assumptions of the analysis

South Korea’s foreign aid within the international system and its middle power diplomacy

DOI: 10.4324/9781003019893-1

In the 2000s, a number of emerging nations rose as aid donors, bringing about a potentially significant transition to the established international development community. These nations included many Asian countries, such as China, India, Indonesia, and Thailand; Latin American countries, such as Brazil and Mexico; and European countries, such as the Czech Republic, Iceland, Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia. Turkey and South Africa also represent emerging donors in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, respectively. Among these emerging donors, the rise of the Republic of Korea (hereafter, the ROK or South Korea) has been remarkable. South Korea entered the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2010, and its entry was symbolic of the rise of emerging powers in the international development community. For South Korea itself, DAC membership meant an elevation in its national status as a developed country (H.S. Kim, 2012). After South Korea joined the DAC, the six European countries noted above also became committee members.

Since the establishment of the DAC, Western donors have led the international development community and the development of foreign aid regimes by generating aid-related ideas, rules, and standards. According to Hook and Rumsey (2016), the foreign aid regime comprises principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures, as follows:

Principles [are] reflected in the DAC’s presumption that economic growth is best facilitated by market-driven policies. Norms … are captured by the regime’s stated concern for welfare of poor states. Rules … include meeting the regime’s four performance standards … Decision-making procedures in this case include mandatory peer reviews and regular deliberations of the DAC Secretariat.

(pp. 59–60)

The four standards guiding DAC donor aid performance include a 0.7% target for official development assistance (ODA)/gross national income (GNI), a 0.15%–0.20% target for aid to least developed countries (LDCs)/GNI, grant element, and the proportion of untied aid in bilateral aid.¹ The development of the foreign aid regime has resulted in the convergence of donors’ aid behaviors. Specifically, as instructed by the foreign aid regime, DAC donors have begun to provide more multilateral aid and increase untied aid and grants in bilateral aid. They have also directed an increased amount of aid to the poorest countries and aid sectors. The convergence of donors’ aid behaviors has boosted international cooperation for solving global poverty (Hook & Rumsey, 2016; Lumsdaine, 1993).

South Korea has demonstrated that it is an adherent of the existing foreign aid regime. Although specific studies, such as that by Chun et al. (2010), have criticized South Korea for its failure to improve the quantity and quality of its ODA, the consensus is that South Korea has adhered to the requirements of the foreign aid regime. Having recovered economically from the currency crisis in the mid-2000s, the South Korean government made preparations to enter the DAC: it increased the volume and quality of its ODA and developed a policy framework following the criteria for joining the DAC (H.S. Kim, 2012). In terms of aid quality, South Korea has closed the gap between itself and other DAC donors, for example, by increasing the proportion of multilateral aid in its total ODA as well as untied aid and grants in the bilateral aid (H.S. Kim, 2012, 2016; Marx & Soares, 2013). Notably, it did so in providing ODA to the LDCs in accordance with the DAC recommendations (Choi, 2015). Kim (2017) highlighted the convergence of South Korea’s aid behavior with that of the international donor community, indicating that South Korea had adopted the international goal of poverty reduction. She argued that this is one primary driver of South Korea’s increasing aid to Africa in recent years.

South Korea’s case is significant because it provides important insight for understanding the impact of the rise of emerging donors on the existing international development order. The rise of emerging nations as donors since the 2000s has raised international concerns about what this phenomenon brings to the established cooperative international order (Bergamaschi, Moore & Tickner, 2017; Chin & Quadir, 2012; Cooper & Farooq, 2015; Hook & Rumsey, 2016; Kragelund, 2008; Mawdsley, 2012; Naim, 2007; Woods, 2008; Zimmermann & Smith, 2011). Some scholars take a negative perspective of emerging donors, arguing that by providing aid the emerging donors, especially China, disrupt the established order. Naim (2007) averred that China has provided aid to developing countries without transparency, selectivity, and conditionality. Thus, it may directly disrupt the existing order established by Western donors. Kragelund (2008), who studied the impact of the non-DAC donors on Africa’s development, pointed out that although their return to Africa increases external financial flow and catalyzes investment and trade towards the region, it may prevent aid harmonization and raise transaction costs for recipients.

Some scholars consider that the emerging donors—for example, the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa)—have little influence on the existing regime. Specifically, studies on the promotion of democracy support this kind of argument. Although the democratic emerging powers have the potential to display a new democracy model (Öniş & Gençer, 2018; Schönwälder, 2014), many of them are reluctant to implement international assistance for the promotion of democracy (Abdenur & Marcondes, 2016; Cooper & Farooq, 2016). This is because, in addition to the low priority of the promotion of democracy in their foreign policy, the democratic emerging powers have domestic problems in social and economic inequality, sustainability of economic growth, and quality of democracy, including transparency and corruption (Khadiagala & Nganje, 2016, p. 1563; Öniş & Gençer, 2018). The maintenance of relations with the authoritarian BRICS members, China and Russia, and their asymmetric interdependency with China make it challenging for the democratic emerging powers to take collective actions to promote democracy (Öniş & Gençer, 2018, pp. 1803–1804). The democratic emerging powers are at the interstice of liberal internationalism, which promotes human rights and democracy, and south–south cooperation—or the Beijing Consensus—based on the principles of state sovereignty and nonintervention in internal affairs, and it prevents them from playing a positive role in international cooperation for the promotion of democracy (Chin & Quadir, 2012; Khadiagala & Nganje, 2016, p. 1576; Öniş & Gençer, 2018).

However, as noted above, South Korea illustrates how an emerging donor can maintain the existing system’s stability as a new donor. In addition, South Korea’s foreign aid is helpful in showing how an emerging donor can reinforce the established cooperative framework for reducing global poverty by playing a more active and autonomous role in the international development community. For example, at the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness held in Busan in 2011, South Korea acted as a facilitator between developed and developing countries and demonstrated its leadership over the shift in the development cooperation paradigm from aid effectiveness to development effectiveness (Howe, 2015, pp. 28–29; Stallings & Kim, 2017, pp. 111–113). In addition, South Korea has endeavored to play a bridging role between developed and developing countries through the share of its development experience. The South Korean development experience is unique. The country succeeded in transforming itself from one of the world’s poorest states to a DAC donor within a relatively short period. Yun Byung-Se, the Minister of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) of South Korea, referred to “taking ownership and successfully mobilizing development resources through the catalytic use of ODA” (OECD, 2014, p. 30) as key elements of South Korea’s experience in the OECD Development Co-operation Report 2014. He noted that South “Korea’s use of ODA can guide other countries in their development” (OECD, 2014, p. 30). In order to share its experience, the South Korean government has demonstrated the necessity of establishing a “Korean ODA model” in policy documents, such as A Comprehensive ODA Reform Plan (Gukje gaegal hyeopryeok gaeseon bangan) published in 2005 (Office for Government Policy Coordination, 2005) as well as the Strategic Plan for International Development Cooperation (Gukje gaebal hyeopyyeok seonjinhwa bangan) in 2010 (Government of South Korea, 2010). In 2012, the 13th Committee for International Development Cooperation (CIDC) adopted Research on Establishing a Korean ODA Model (Hangukhyeong ODA model surip chongron) (Joo et al., 2014). In doing so, South Korea is able to suggest possible alternatives to the existing foreign aid and the development model.

Why, then, has South Korea adopted such policies devoted to the continuity and consolidation of the existing international development order? How have those policies been determined? To truly understand the impact of emerging donors on the existing order, how they behave and why and how their behavior is determined should be investigated. To answer these questions, this book analyzes South Korea’s foreign aid as a middle power, focusing on domestic politics. The analysis is based on the following two assumptions deduced from the literature review:

Assumption one: the provision of ODA in alignment with middle power diplomacy is a rational choice for South Korea in an international system where the power balance has been transforming since the 2000s.

Assumption two: The president is the most influential decision-maker in South Korean ODA, and Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye utilized ODA as the important tool for accomplishing middle power diplomacy.

Based on these assumptions, this book identifies how domestic politics constrain South Korea’s ODA strategy for middle power diplomacy by focusing on the role of the National Assembly and government organizations. The analysis period covers the Lee Myung-bak administration (2008–2013) and the Park Geun-hye administration (2013–2017). The central argument of this book is that it is true that the president’s strong leadership has led South Korea’s middle power diplomacy through ODA provision; however, the legisla...