South Korea’s Developmentalist Worldview and Debates about Its Modernity

South Koreans make a Eurocentric hierarchy between countries according to the criteria of their developmental discourse, the discourse of seonjinguk (advanced country). In this discursive framework, the identity of South Korea tends to be constructed as a country near seonjinguk or “on the threshold of seonjinguk” (“seonjinguk munteok”), which provides both senses of superiority over hujinguk (backward country) and of inferiority over seonjinguk. With this intermediate identity, Korea is still under the project of modernization, actively pursuing the status of seonjinguk as its historical national mission. This paper aims to provide a critical review of the debates about Korea’s modernity in the light of its dominant developmentalist worldview, the discourse of seonjinguk.