© Pacifc Afairs: Volume 92, No. 4 December 2019 715 Development, Discernment, and Death: Dore on the South Korean Economy Hyung-Gu Lynn Abstract Ronald Dore’s 1977 article in Pacifc Afairs, “South Korean Development in Wider Perspective,” is a rare example of the scholar known for his writings on Japan applying his analytical lens on South Korea. What were some of this article’s most notable areas of foresight and elision related to development studies? This essay answers this question by interpreting connections to publications before and after 1977 to analyze areas of insight under the rubric of “discernment” and overlooked subjects under “death.” On one hand, Dore’s essay was ahead of the curve in its deft foreshadowing of post-developmentalist, varieties of capitalism, and developmental state approaches to economic development. On the other, Dore sidestepped the efects of death on economic development in three forms: literal— efects of changing mortality rates on investments in education and human capital; industries related to death—wars, munitions production and arms expenditures; and the afterefects of the death of a scholar—the revisiting and renewal of debates that can sometimes emerge as a result. Keywords: South Korea, economic development, post-development, varieties of capitalism, developmental state, mortality, munitions, death DOI: 10.5509/2019924715 Development—Introduction M ary Shelley, buried in the town of Bournemouth, where Ronald Dore was born, wrote in the opening section of Frankenstein, “Nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose, a point on which the soul may fx its intellectual eye.” 1 The novel goes on to examine among other things, the many facets of this dictum; I attempt something somewhat similar, on a far more modest scale, with one ____________________ Hyung-Gu Lynn is the AECL/KEPCO Chair in Korean Research in the Department of Asian Studies, The University of British Columbia. 1 The words of the narrator, Captain Robert Walton, in the opening letter to his sister. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (London: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones, 1818), 4.