Taking the developmental state seriously: Why South Korea outperformed neoliberal regulatory states in rapid coronavirus disease 2019 vaccinations and saving lives

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 claimed more than three million lives worldwide in 2020, giving national governments the most urgent task for 2021 to achieve high vaccination rates to save lives. The World Health Organization declared that “vaccines are the most critical tool to end the pandemic and save lives.” In this context, South Korea (hereafter, Korea) achieved a remarkable milestone by outperforming the United Kingdom and the United States in vaccinations rate, where the world's earliest vaccination programs started. Thanks to its high vaccination rate, Korea recorded less than 100 deaths per million populations in 2021 compared to more than 1000 in the United Kingdom and the United States. Why Korea leaped ahead of the United Kingdom and the United States in rapid vaccinations that saved many lives? To answer this question, I first conceptualize contemporary Korea as a developmental state which retained its institutional capacity despite its transition from authoritarianism to liberal democracy, distinguishing it from the UK and the US's neoliberal regulatory states, where reforms hallowed out state capacity. I then advance two core claims. First, Korea surpassed the United Kingdom and the United States in vaccine rollout because of its developmental state-type goal-oriented autonomous policymaking and strong institutional capacity, manifested as Korea's central agency deployed a command and control vaccination program led by a coherent health bureaucracy. Second, the Korean state's strategic intervention in the market and its capacity to foster public–private partnerships to realize national goals boosted its vaccinations. Finally, the paper suggests how neoliberal regulatory states in the global north can learn lessons from the Korean experience in rebuilding state capacity to deal with the future global pandemic.