Weight of Credit: Politics of Credit Mobilization in Taiwan and South Korea, 1961-1978

Joonsik Kim, University of Toronto

Scholars of credit politics often highlight the “political lightness of credit” (Quinn 2019), arguing that policymakers prefer expanding credit programs because they are politically easier than engaging in fiscal policies. However, recent literature challenges the notion that credit politics is without contention (Robinson 2020). To move beyond the dichotomy between the political heaviness and lightness of credit, this paper explores what shapes the “political weight of credit.” Building on the literature of fiscal sociology, which examines how resistance can vary by tax type, this paper argues that the political weight of credit varies by the economic burden and visibility of credit programs. To examine the varied political weight of credit programs, this paper compares credit mobilization programs in Taiwan and South Korea, which initiated and strengthened national savings movements at similar times. Drawing on historical archival data from Taiwan and South Korea, I found that while the combination of high economic burden and coercive mobilization could result in public resistance similar to taxation, a low economic burden and an invisible strategy of mobilization would not cause serious resistance. The findings of this project theorize the politics of credit mobilization by extending fiscal sociology to credit politics.

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 Presented in Session 3. Crises, Transformations, and Resilience in Historical Perspective: Insights from Global Comparative Research