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International Area Studies Review
[ Article ]
International Area Studies Review - Vol. 28, No. 3, pp.334-359
ISSN: 2233-8659 (Print)
Print publication date 25 Sep 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.69473/iasr.2025.28.3.334

Firm Heterogeneity and Individual Attitudes Toward the Liberal International Order in South Korea

Hyunwoo Kim*
Division of Language and Diplomacy, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Correspondence to: *Email: hkim1651@hufs.ac.kr

Abstract

The existing literature on the globalization backlash has predominantly analyzed individuals’ attitudes toward the liberal international order (LIO) through the lens of the Ricardo-Viner model, which conceptualizes inter-industry trade as the primary mode of international exchange and consequently emphasizes political cleavages along industry lines. Departing from this industry-centered framework, this article examines individual attitudes toward the LIO in South Korea, drawing on the New New Trade Theory (NNTT), which accounts for a high degree of intra-industry trade and firm-level heterogeneity in export capacity. Building on the distributional implications of firm size suggested by the NNTT, I argue that employees of large enterprises (LEs) in South Korea are less likely than those employed by smaller firms to hold negative views of the liberal international order (LIO). This is because LEs, which benefit from increasing returns to scale and thus higher productivity, are better positioned to gain from deeper integration into global markets. Empirical analysis of Wave 7 of the World Values Survey (2018) lends support to this argument. Using the regional share of LEs as a proxy for an individual’s employment in an LE, this article—albeit indirectly—examines the relationship between firm size and workers’ attitudes toward globalization and finds that individuals living in regions with a higher concentration of LEs are less likely to hold negative views of the two international economic regimes that underpin globalization—the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—than those living in regions with lower concentrations of LEs.

Keywords:

Globalization backlash, Liberal international order, New New Trade Theory, Politics of trade

AI Acknowledgment

Generative AI or AI-assisted technologies were not used in any way to prepare, write, or complete essential authoring tasks in this manuscript.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

This study was supported by Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Research Fund.

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