content/70/1.toc GLOBALISATION, ELECTRONIC EMPIRE, AND THE VIRTUAL GEOGRAPHY OF KOREA’S INFORMATION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE *

Abstract / The present study focuses on the electronic infrastructural condition for current global capitalism. This study briefly surveys the genealogy of globalisation theories, focusing especially on Marxist interpretations of capital accumulation on a global scale. The study situates the historical–geographical condition of Korea’s informatisation in relation to the new world system which Hardt and Negri have described as ‘Empire’, the replacement for classical imperialism. Based on this concept of ‘Empire’, the paper explores how Korea has been rapidly and successfully incorporated into the imperial network by mobilizing her citizens towards high-speed telecom mobility and connexity across the country. It concludes, however, that behind Korea’s public image as a global IT leader, the other, darker side of Korea’s informatisation is composed of the complex and intricate traits of the local, exhibited under extreme state interventionism and uneven geographies of centrality and marginality. This study focuses on the new material conditions of globalisation, which is virtually constructed by the worldwide electronic network of capital1. The virtual geography of globalisation based on mobility and connexity signifies a power shift of capital, and forces local states to affiliate as or integrate into a part of the new world system which Hardt and Negri have described as ‘Empire’