How Authoritarian Regimes Maintain Domain Consensus: North Korea's Information Strategies in the Kim Jong-un Era

Abstract

The North Korean government of Kim Jong-un is experiencing multiple simultaneous challenges to its legitimacy, but few could be more serious than the inflow and circulation of information in society. This paper uses three case studies to specifically examine how the North Korean state is responding to this danger by actively projecting narratives of transformation: “re-defectors,” sports, and Kim Jong-un’s court orchestra, the Moranbong Band. In every case, it becomes clear that the state is employing an active strategy, not only responding to negative external portrayals, but also trying to shape its own image both within and without its borders. In order to understand how the state interacts with the North Korean public, this paper employs Thomas Callaghy’s trifurcated “domain consensus” as a framework by which to sub-categorize Pyongyang’s approach: normative, utilitarian, and coercive. It focuses on the first of these types of consensus formation, the normative, by exploring the information strategies used by the Kim Jong-un government as it seeks to promote a revised Weberian “reciprocity of expectations” with the population.