Abstract
Confronting the continuing economic sanctions, the flood disaster, and the COVID 19, North Korea is now in a critical phase whether the North Korean economy will shift to a sustainable economy or, as it has done in the past three decades, barely manage to maintain at a survival level. To explore the question, this study investigates North Korea’s economic policy changes by extracting the keywords from the North Korean economic journal Economic Research, which is a representative state published document. We use a text mining approach to overcome limitations, such as the lack of objectivity and accuracy of the classification of topics in manual text analysis for North Korean studies. Contrary to the conventional assumption that the North Korean economic policies are driven by dogmatic Juche (self-reliance) ideology, we find that the strategy of economic policies differs depending on the leader and political and economic circumstances at the time. In particular, since Kim Jong-un assumed office in 2011, the topics have diversified, and now cover a wide range of subjects on capitalism. Nevertheless, without North Korea’s decisive reform measures and international cooperation, it will be hard to observe that the North Korean economy can go beyond ‘muddling-through’ for sustainable development.
Highlights
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un held the 5th plenary session of the 7th Central Committee in December 2019 and presented a ‘new path’ that calls for self-reliance on the economy, political and military stability, and party control as key elements
Since the North Korean economy is inevitably influenced by a single leader, the articles published in Economic Research can be regarded as reflecting the political interests of the leader
The titles of the articles in Economic Research are analyzed to verify whether the characteristics shown in the titles of the paper can be classified by leader or time
Summary
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un held the 5th plenary session of the 7th Central Committee in December 2019 and presented a ‘new path’ that calls for self-reliance on the economy, political and military stability, and party control as key elements. Kim Jong-il, leader, used military-first policies to stimulate a military-first economy to overcome the unprecedented economic crisis, but the North Korean economy failed to recover, and in 2011, Kim Jong-un became the leader [1,2,3,4] In his 2012 New Year’s joint editorial, shortly after his succession to power, Kim Jong-un declared his future course of economic rehabilitation and nuclear weapons development, stressing that, ‘(We) will continue to walk our own path of self-reliance, strong military power, and socialism’ and that he will further consolidate the position of the political thought of revolution by ‘building a strong socialist nation’. The new economic policy direction and discourse that has emerged under the Kim Jong-un regime, in particular, are well worth noting in the study of North Korea’s economic policy. Against this backdrop, this present paper attempts to explore the following research questions.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
