Young and Dynamic?—The Curious Case of Korea's National Level Post‐2015 Process

This paper explores Korea's national‐level post‐2015 process via contextualising the political economy of Seoul's aid architecture. We examine the global–local discrepancy manifested in its uneven domestic processes where the global development ideas are localised and a uniquely Korean development experience is globalised. In doing so, the paper highlights the vertically and horizontally fragmented system and the lack of capacity, coordination and consistency at the heart of an uneven post‐2015 process. An in‐depth analysis of Korea's ODA architecture and Saemaul ODA demonstrates how global debates become subject to arbitrary localisation and further divergence to suit vested interests of various actors within Seoul's ODA.