Note the massive distrust of scientists across the political spectrum in South Korea.

"South Korea handled COVID-19 well because they trust the scientists" Ha! Like hell. https://twitter.com/JohnSaeki/status/1310948927634632707

The faster you understand South Korea as a low trust society that is deeply suspicious of authority figures, the faster you understand how the South Korean society works.

"... because (1) the political leadership intensely focused on earning the people's trust that the government will do everything to protect them, and (2) the developmental state tradition allowed massive mobilization of the private sector for a public purpose." https://twitter.com/fcaidan/status/1311015552564027395

Events on the ground confirmed (1) multiple times. Whenever South Korea did suffer an outbreak, it came from those demographic groups whose trusts could not be earned - cults, LGBT, conservatives and evangelicals.

(2) is a super under-rated point. South Korea displayed incredible state capacity during the pandemic but the South Korean state is not big. US CDC has over 10k employees; KCDC (now KDCA) only has 860. It's a small government that does big things in a nimble way.

This is the legacy from the developmental state. Even during the military dictatorship, the state itself was never very big - instead, the state achieved its agenda by mobilizing the private sector actors through a combination of incentives and coercion.

Even though South Korea today is a democracy, this public-private partnership pattern continues. The govt bureaucracy is not big, but they are expected to coordinate and direct the private corporations through persuasion and incentives, especially in times of a crisis.

The case of S Korea may serve as an alternative to the tired big govt/small govt debate. In terms of the size of the bureaucracy and budget, S Korean govt is small. But in terms of capability and the role it expected to play, S Korean govt is huge.

it *is expected to play...

This report is a great example: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-testing-specialrep/special-report-how-korea-trounced-u-s-in-race-to-test-people-for-coronavirus-idUSKBN2153BW

The moment S Korea had the first case of COVID-19, the KCDC summoned executives from all the bio and pharma companies and ordered them to make test kits. In exchange, KCDC promised rapid approvals and guaranteed contracts. https://twitter.com/human_energy_hr/status/1311025864205717504

US and S Korea had Case No. 1 on the same day. How did US react? The CDC insisted on making its own test kits exclusively, then fucked up the production such that no test kit was available for weeks, during which the virus spread. Classic dumb big govt mistake.

It's actually not true that S Korean govt has more power over corporations. Of course it has big regulatory reach, but not any more than US/UK regulatory state. In some ways, US regulations are a lot more dense and punitive than S Korean regulations.

If there is a "cultural" argument to be made about S Korea's response to C-19, this is it - that the developmental state legacy makes corporations more attentive to government directives. Not some BS about Confucianism making everyone mindless sheep.