Mediating Universality: Latin American dependency theory in the South Korean social formation debate of the 1980s

This article examines the reception of Latin American dependency theory in South Korea from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, a rare case of East–South circulation of critical theory. Focusing on the South Korean social formation debate – a series of intense theoretical disputes that structured Marxist discourse within the Left during the mid-1980s – the article analyses how dependency theory was introduced, adapted, and criticised at a moment when Marxist political economy was being consolidated as a dominant theoretical framework after the 1980 Gwangju Uprising. Tracing the interventions of several key participants in both the early reception of Latin American dependency theory later debate, the article shows how it served as a central conceptual reference through which competing positions reassessed the historical character of Korean capitalism. The article thus reframes Latin American dependency theory not as a failed or superseded approach, but as a constitutive element of South Korean Marxist discourse whose tensions illuminate broader problems of Marxist universality and non-European historical experience.