Over the last two decades or so, all four of our chosen countries, the Czech Republic, Korea, Ukraine and Vietnam, have experienced a great deal of economic, social, and environmental change. Much of that has been attributed quite rightly to globalisation, to the movement towards a more market-based economy internally, and towards opening up the national economy more to world markets. Other economic, social, or environmental changes that have happened at the same time might well be associated in the public mind with the process of globalisation, if only by the coincidence of timing. Public perceptions of change have thus provided a basis for public attitudes towards globalisation.

We cannot assume that economic, social, or environmental change – as described in official statistics or the reports of widely respected non-governmental organisations – would translate automatically into public perceptions, still less into public satisfaction or public discontent. Nonetheless these official or semi-official reports provide a backdrop – part explanation, part contrast – to public perceptions of trends in economic prosperity, inequality, pollution, crime, corruption and culture; to public satisfaction or discontent with ‘the way things are going’; and perhaps therefore to public support for the processes of marketisation and opening up.

The statistics of change

Opening up (South) Korea adopted an export-led growth strategy in the 1960s and opened up to foreign imports and investment in the 1990s (World Bank 1993).