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1 6 5 Until 1945, Koreans had long formed one of the most homogeneous societies on the planet. Partitioned at the thirty-eighth parallel in August 1945, the South and North became two different political systems and societies. In 1948, the South became a separate state, the Republic of Korea (ROK), as did the North, which called itself the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Following the Korean War (1950–53), the North industrialized much faster than the South. Starting in the 1970s, however, the ROK evolved into a near model of societal fitness while the DPRK remained a rogue state, dangerous to its own people and the world. While the Gangnam Style Psy led the world’s popular hit parade and pranced for ROK voters in 2012, the North’s soft power consisted in mass demonstrations to honor its dead demigods. Can complexity science shed light on this divergence? Contrasts in Human Development By 2013, the Republic of Korea ranked twelfth of 186 countries on the UN Human Development Index (HDI) (up from twenty-sixth in 2007 and fifteenth in 2011). Norway was at the top in 2013, with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Niger at the bottom. The United States placed third; Japan, tenth; and Hong Kong, thirteenth. The ROK ranked well ahead of Singapore, eighteenth; Russia, fifty-fifth; China, 101st; and Mongolia, 108th. Given the lack of reliable data, the HDI did not rank North Korea. Its meager GDP and chapter nine Why Is South Korea Not North Korea? 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 20 1 6 6 C O M P L E X I T Y S C I E N C E A N D W OR L D A F FA I R S poor health would push the DPRK toward the bottom, though its extensive school enrollment would raise it somewhat. The UN Development Programme offered no data on the DPRK except to note that, in 2011, life expectancy at birth in the North was 68.8, much lower than 80.6 in the South.1 In 2013 South Korea’s life expectancy at birth was 80.7; its mean years of schooling, 11.6, and expected years of schooling, 17.2; gross national income per capita, $28,231. If income were omitted (thus giving more weight to health and education), the country’s HDI score increased from 0.909 to 0.949. South Korea’s rank on gender equality was twenty-seventh from the top (where The Netherlands was number one). Japan ranked higher (better) at twenty-first, while the United States ranked much lower—forty-second. The major difference was in maternal mortality: In the ROK there were sixteen deaths of mothers per one hundred thousand live births compared with twenty-one in the United States. On the other hand, income inequality in the ROK was greater even than in the United States. South Korea placed twenty-eighth from the best score on the inequality-adjusted HDI in 2011, while the United States placed twenty-third. Human development numbers for South Korea rose rapidly in the late twentieth century. The absolute score for South Korea in 1980 was 0.634— far below the OECD average then of 0.749.2 The ROK narrowed the gap with the OECD in 1990 and 2000 and went on to score higher than the OECD in 2005—0.866 versus 0.860. By 2011, the gap was still larger— ROK, 0.897, versus OECD, 0.873. Like other advanced industrial countries, the ROK advanced more slowly in the early twenty-first century. The UN Development Programme offered no data on the DPRK except to note that, in 2011, life expectancy at birth in the North was 68.8 years—much lower than the 80.6 in the South.3 The World Economic Forum ranked South Korea the nineteenth most competitive of 144 countries in 2012–13—behind Switzerland, ranked first; Singapore, second; the United States, seventh; Hong Kong, ninth; Japan, tenth; and Taiwan, thirteenth. On the other hand, the ROK ranked well ahead of three neighbors: China (twenty-ninth), Russia (sixty-seventh) and Mongolia (ninety-third). North Korea was not listed.4 The Bertelsmann Foundation Transformation Index gives a still broader set of measures. Political and economic developments (or lack thereof) put North Korea at 125th of 128 countries, with Somalia at the bottom. South Korea ranks eleventh on his list, behind the Czech Republic (first...

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