The Crisis of Work Sociology in the Era of Neoliberalism: The Case of South Korea

In South Korea, work regime and labor market have been transformed toward flexibilization since the neoliberal restructuring launched under the economic crisis taking place in 1998. The dominant reform discourse has been driven by neo-classical economists, who imported the US-based neoliberal theories. The sociologists, who are majoring in the labor studies and sociology of work, have produced the discourse of resistance against the neoliberal reforms of labor markets, but failed to gain the public influence in the contested discourse. My paper is to delineate the failed resistance by sociologists in Korea and try to explain why they failed.