The Risk of Compressed Modernity

In many Asian societies, the process of modernisation often took place in a rapid and highly compressed fashion – not over centuries, as had happened in most Western societies, but in several decades. This enabled Asian societies to achieve high levels of economic growth very quickly, but it also harboured unexpected risks and costs that threatened further development.

The very mechanisms and strategies that made their explosive modernisation possible tended to produce existentially hazardous consequences in virtually all areas of public and private life, and seemingly insurmountable obstacles to sustained advances in the future.

Focusing on South Korea and other Asian countries, The Risk of Compressed Modernity presents a critical account of compressed modernity and its key structural risks. These include endemic political crises, distorted industrial governance, widespread labour displacement, worsening intellectual and cultural dependency, rampant environmental and physical hazards, and even abrupt demographic meltdown. However, these risks and contradictions have also stimulated structural reforms and adaptations, opening up the possibility for the kind of radical change that Ulrich Beck described as “the metamorphosis of the world.”