The financial and economic collapse of 1997 provoked serious reflection on South Korea's development experience. This book offers a critique of how conventional analyses have interpreted Korean development by focusing on the problems of Korean dirigisme (state-led development) that led to the crisis. Korea's dirigisme carried with it a flawed authoritarian rule that undermined the fruits of development by directing the development process without genuine and principled regard for the needs and lives of ordinary citizens. The problem this book examines lies at the intersection of two areas of discussion—development and the state—often carried out separately by different professional and academic groups.