North Korean Politics Research Articles

Evaluating Everyday Politics in North Korea

ABSTRACT In North Korea, as elsewhere, there exists a society beyond the state, and an everyday life where government authority meets and mixes with the private sphere. Examining this sphere is crucial for a holistic understanding of North Korean politics, both in the past and the present, and this is the goal of this Special Issue. Our introductory essay reviews the diverse literature on everyday politics in North Korea and assesses patterns within it. Next, it proposes four theoretical considerations in the hope that they may lend common ground to those doing research on everyday politics in North Korea and facilitate more theoretically informed discussion. Researchers can use these areas – socialisation, surveillance, survival, and support – to situate their analyses more theoretically as they assess everyday politics in the DPRK. Each of the contributions to this Special Issue addresses some or all of these areas, which are intended to be a framework to bring the contributions, and by extension the broader topic of everyday politics in North Korea, into a deeper theoretical conversation.

Markets and the Development of Social Trust in the Everyday Politics of North Korea: Chinese Entrepreneurs’ Perspectives

ABSTRACT The growth of markets in North Korea has spurred discussion about the prospects for social change in the country. This article explores whether and how marketisation increases social trust among market participants and its implications for everyday politics in North Korea. We draw insights from the literature on social trust as well as empirical evidence from interviews conducted with Chinese business entrepreneurs operating in North Korea to better understand the relationship between market activity and trust in North Korea. We argue that market participants rely on a variety of strategies to navigate North Korea’s ambiguous political and economic climate. These strategies are often adopted to increase transparency, access information, reduce uncertainty, and resolve business disputes between parties. Ultimately, each of these strategies is linked to building trust among North Koreans. At the same time, the North Korean state has also inserted itself into trust networks to extract additional resources from markets and (re)establish political control. Thus, in the everyday politics of North Korea, participation in informal markets reflects socialisation into norms and behaviours that increase trust while simultaneously providing support to the state.

Collective Memory and Everyday Politics in North Korea: A Qualitative Text Analysis of New Year Statements, 1946–2019

ABSTRACT Rulers often use a mythologised understanding of the past to further their political interests in the present. In authoritarian societies, rulers often manipulate collective memory to justify their hold on power. When rulers manipulate specific aspects of the past, they can shape the collective memory of ordinary people and thus have a significant impact on everyday politics. Using the case of North Korea, one of the world’s most authoritarian societies, I theorise everyday politics from the standpoint of the state by focusing on legitimation and collective memory. Based on the New Year statements issued by North Korean rulers between 1946 and 2019, I use thematic coding through qualitative text analysis to analyse how these rulers have portrayed specific aspects of the past in their political discourse. The article focuses on how legitimation claims about the ‘Chollima Work Team’ within the ‘Chollima Movement’ have used memory politics to shape the everyday lives of North Koreans. Because these claims have been invoked consistently in propaganda for decades, a comparative examination over time shows the propagandistic tools that North Korean rulers have drawn on for mobilisation.

The DPRK and Cuba in the Initial Period of Bilateral Relations (1960–1965): The Limits of “Socialist Solidarity”

In this article, drawing on recently declassified archive sources from the Soviet embassy in Pyongyang, the author aims to refute the traditional view of North Korean-Cuban relations as historically close and equal, based on socialist solidarity and a common struggle against imperialism. In it, she argues that for North Korea, its “unbreakable friendship” with Cuba was motivated by more than just a desire to help the “brotherly country” in its anti-imperialist struggle. Exploring the early phase of bilateral relations, the author looks behind the propaganda façade of internationalism and socialist solidarity to examine the pragmatic motives behind North Korean desire to establish strong relations with the new socialist Cuba. She argues that North Korea originally sought to adopt the same senior partner role to Cuba that the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries had with respect to North Korea itself, promoting a North Korean political and ideological model in Cuba and contrasting it with both the Soviet and Chinese models. North Korea used the growing Sino-Soviet rift to discredit both the Soviet Union and China, while simultaneously promoting itself and its model as an alternative to the two quarrelling socialist giants. The study of archival sources provides a more detailed insight into the early phase of North Korean-Cuban relations and contributes to an understanding of North Korean foreign policy and its characteristic features still in place today.

Guns, Guerrillas, and the Great Leader: North Korea and the Third World by Benjamin R. Young

<i>Guns, Guerrillas, and the Great Leader: North Korea and the Third World</i> by Benjamin R. Young

Contributors

Previous article FreeContributorsPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreSungmin Cho is a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii. His research focuses on democratization, authoritarian resilience, and Chinese and North Korean politics. Cho’s most recent scholarly articles appear in World Politics (2021) and Security Nexus (2021).Kecheng Fang (方可成) is an assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include journalism, political communication, and digital media. Before joining academia, he worked as a political journalist at the Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly.Jennie Jin is a special projects and disinterment manager at the scientific analysis directorate at America’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. As an anthropologist, her interests include the scientific and diplomatic aspects of the recovery and identification of missing US service members from past conflicts.Adam Y. Liu (刘遥) is assistant professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. His main research interests include Chinese politics and political economy. He is currently working on a book project that explores how central-local politics drove the formation, expansion, and operation of what he calls an “authoritarian market” in China’s banking sector. The project is based on his dissertation, which won the 2020 BRICS Economic Research Award. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University and was a postdoctoral associate with the Leitner Program in International and Comparative Political Economy at Yale University.Jean C. Oi is the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow there at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). Oi has published extensively on political economy and the process of reform in China. Recent books include Fateful Decisions: Choices That Will Shape China’s Future, co-edited with Thomas Fingar (2020); and Zouping Revisited: Adaptive Governance in a Chinese County, co-edited with Steven Goldstein (2018). Her current research continues to explore central-local relations, including local government debt. She is also in the early stages of a project on China’s Belt and Road Initiative.Fengshi Wu (吴逢时) is associate professor in politics and international relations at University of New South Wales, Sydney. Her current research focuses on environmental movements and governance in authoritarian and hybrid polities.Kai Yang (杨凯) is a PhD candidate at the Department of Government and Public Administration, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is currently a visiting researcher at the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. His research interests cover contentious politics and authoritarian learning. His research article has appeared in The China Quarterly.Shen Yang (楊燊) is an assistant professor in the School of Graduate Studies and the Department of Political Science at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. His main research interests cover political contentions and Internet politics, with a focus on mainland China and Hong Kong. He has published articles in peer-reviewed journals including Law & Social Inquiry, Social Movement Studies, and Voluntas.Yi Zhang (张一) is chief economist of Zhonghai Shengrong Asset Management Group. He was a visiting scholar at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), Stanford University. His main research interests are China’s fiscal system and policy studies of Chinese local government. He received his PhD from the Institute of World Economics and Politics (IWEP), the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Previous article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The China Journal Volume 87January 2022 Published on behalf of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/719039 Views: 430 © 2021 The Australian National University. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Kim Jong-un’s 10 years era, the Performance of 'Urisik(self-style)Economic Management Mearsures' and Political and economic Implication

At the 8th Party Congress in 2021, Kim Jong-un officially acknowledged the failure of the “five-year strategy for national economic development” at the 7th Party Congress. However, from the beginning of his administration in 2012, Kim Jong-un started with the June 28 Policy , followed by the 12ㆍ1 Measures , which expanded the autonomy of factories and businesses under the Socialist Enterprise Management System , and the 5&#8231;30 Measures that made them all-out. The Urisik(self-style) economic management measures aimed at economic reform were actively promoted. On the other hand, looking at the economic performance from 2012 to 2014 in the first half of his reign, North Korea also showed the possibility of sustainable economic growth if it continuously pushes reform measures such as expanding the autonomy of agriculture and enterprises (trade). The problem is that, due to the nature of North Korean politics, as was confirmed in the July 1 Measures during the Kim Jong-il era in 2002, reform measures involved political struggle, and national strategies such as the Economic-Nuclear parallel Line can disable domestic economic reform measures against North Korea. The point is that it causes conflict with the international community, such as sanctions against North Korea. In addition, the economic outlook for North Korea after 2021 remains bleak due to the political and economic rigidity of the North Korean system, which adheres to the failed “self-style” economic policy and cannot make any attempts beyond it.

Making Sense of the Gender Gap in South Koreans’ Attitudes towards North Korean Defectors

Abstract South Korean women are less favourable towards open admission policies for North Korean defectors, less supportive of assistance to defectors, and less willing to integrate with defectors than are South Korean men. Such a gender gap contradicts the findings of studies on refugee attitudes in Western countries. This article proposes two distinct explanations for the gap: 1. intra-gender competition induced by a gendered labour market and gender-imbalanced defector inflows and 2. gendered outgroup attitudes where women show greater anxiety and aversion towards an unfamiliar outgroup than do men. The explanations are tested using annually repeated cross-sectional survey data (2007–18). I find more consistent support for the gendered outgroup attitude explanation. Whilst South Koreans of both genders increasingly see the two Koreas as socio-culturally distinct, such perceptions of otherness are more strongly linked to negative defector attitudes among South Korean women. I also provide first-cut evidence that knowledge of North Korean society and politics mitigates the outgroup anxiety and, in turn, can mitigate the gender gap in defector attitudes. These findings hold implications for defector and refugee policies in South Korea and other refugee host countries in the region.

북한 산림정책 결정과정에 나타난 조직과정 및 관료정치 : 앨리슨 모델을 중심으로

북한 산림정책 결정과정에 나타난 조직과정 및 관료정치 : 앨리슨 모델을 중심으로

The Study on the Religious Characteristics and Human-centered Concept of North Korean Politics

This paper tries to analyze the process and its contents of the strongly formed religious characteristics in the North Korean political system. Therefore, I considered the emergence of Kim Il-sung, the process of acquiring state power, the substitution of Marxism-Leninism in Juche Ideology, and the process of completing the national system of Kim Il-sung s monolithic system. The “national division” of the Korean Peninsula is the background of the politicization of religion. Residents of the two Koreas, exposed to a long-term cease-fire, appear to be casual in their daily lives, but unconsciously can be seen as working on a war-related security defense mechanism. Studies have shown that North Koreans anxiety about separation from the North Korean regime. Therefore, they respond quickly to crises and cope with them. The politics of the two Koreas can be seen as an active use of this collective security defense mechanism to strengthen political power. An unconsciously operated security defense mechanism can be seen as forming a collective security defense system that responds quickly and actively to security and safety when the nation is in crisis. Such a collective security defense mechanism tends to be strengthened the more powerful it is, and through its policy of antagonizing the world s most powerful U.S., North Korea has completed its nuclear capabilities that have gathered all its national capabilities. Also, loyalty to the leader will be sanctified and easily antagonized by the refusal to recognize the North Korean regime. It can be said that the religious characteristics of North Korean politics are based on the human-centered concept of Juche Ideology. To dismantle the concept of human-centeredness formed in the religiousized political system of North Korea, the horizon of perception into subjects with universal human beings and their wills must be expanded. To be able to accept the human-centered philosophy and socialism of North Koreans in a unified country, it is necessary to dismantle the concept of “human” made in North Korea s religiousized politics and re-recognition of universal “human” and subject. This is because the unification of the concept of the “human center” of the two Koreas should precede. Besides, there is no free democratic country that can accommodate the Juche ideology without an individual ‘subject’.

북한 정치체제의 정체성 분석모형에 관한 연구: 허위의식과 정치적 묵인

본 연구의 목적은 마르크시즘의 핵심 개념인 허위의식과 정치적 묵인을 사용해 역설적으로 사회주의를 표방하는 북한정치체제의 정체성을 분석할 수 있는 가상적 모형을 구성하는 것이다. 허위의식은 ‘현혹하는 힘’을 뜻하며, 허위의식에 빠졌다는 것은 허위의식에 의해 이성적 판단을 할 수 없는 상태를 말한다. 정치적 묵인은 사회적 억압을 당연한 것으로 받아들이는 잘못된 믿음체계의 결과로 자신의 의지나 이해에는 반하는 것을 수동적으로 받아들이는 행위를 말한다. 이들 개념을 조작해 북한 정치체제의 정체성을 확인할 수 있는 분석모형을 구성하였다.<BR> 북한 정치체제를 가상적 모형을 구성해 분석하는 것은 몇 가지 장점이 있다. 첫째, 북한의 복잡하고 동태적인 정치 현상을 단순화시켜 포괄적으로 이해할 수 있게끔 해준다. 둘째, 가상적 모형은 변화에 개방적이어서 역사적 · 사회적 맥락에 따라 변화하는 중요 개념들을 정치적 양상에 따라 첨삭해 다룰 수 있음으로써 북한 정치체제를 동태적으로 논의할 수 있다. 셋째, 가상적 모형은 정치체제를 일반화시켜 줌으로써 북한의 정치체제와 다른 나라의 다양한 특성을 비교연구를 가능하게 한다는 장점이 있다.<BR> 북한 정치체제의 정체성은 김일성으로부터 시작해 김정은에 이르기까지 다소 차이는 있지만 본질적으로 강한 허위의식과 강한 정치적 묵인에 의해 형성 · 유지 · 발전되고 있으며, 이는 북한 정치체제의 분석모형의 B면에서 찾아볼 수 있다고 잠정적인 결론을 맺었다. 여기서 잠정적 결론은 가설을 뜻하며, 이 가설들은 후속 연구에서 실질적 경험적 관찰을 통해 검증될 것을 기대한다.

Dynamics of the Inner Elite in Dictatorships: Evidence from North Korea

How does the circle of inner elites evolve over time in dictatorships? We draw on theories of authoritarian power-sharing to shed light on the evolution of politics in North Korea. Given challenges in collecting individual-level data in this context, we employ web-scraping techniques that capture inspection visits by the dictator as reported by state-run media to assemble network data on elite public co-occurrences. We test the durability of this network since Kim Jong-un's rise to power in December 2011 to find suggestive evidence of elite purging. Our findings contribute to the broader literature on authoritarian elite dynamics and to subnational studies on power-sharing in communist states. Importantly, our approach helps bring the study of North Korean politics more firmly in the mainstream of political science inquiry.

Studying North Korea through North Korean migrants: lessons from the field

ABSTRACTThis article examines the use of North Korean defectors’ accounts as a source of information for studying the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Information from defectors fills a vital knowledge gap and improves our understanding of North Korean politics, economics, and society. Witness accounts and interview data collected from people who were born in North Korea but have since left have been widely used by journalists, government agencies, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and academics. There are, however, serious methodological issues in collecting, organizing, and interpreting information derived from defectors’ accounts. Selection and demographic biases, power relations between researchers and interviewees, monetary incentives, and language barriers are among those issues. We propose focus group discussions and participatory observation as complementary methods of data collection to mitigate the shortfalls of relying on individual interviews.

북한 정치 선전 포스터 디자인의 역사적 변천으로 형성된 북한 스타일 (1945-2019) -시대구분으로 본 북한 선전화의 창작과 그 특징-

해방 후 북한 디자인의 역사적 변천과 함께 수행해 온 북한 정치 선전 포스터에 나타난 ‘북한 스타일’의 생성 과정과 그 특징적 요소에 관해서 실증적 자료를 바탕으로 정리하였다. 특히 각 시대별로 대표 정치 선전 포스터 디자인을 분류하여, 그 표현상에서 타이포그래피의 영역인 정치적 혁명 구호를 통하여 북한의 정치적 변화를 알아보았다. 그 결과 각 시대별로 북한선전화의 나타난 특징은 다음과 같다. 1950년대까지는 전쟁과 전후 복구 그리고 사회주의 국가건설이라는 요소들이 혁명 구호의 형성에 핵심적인 역할을 하였다. 1960년대에는 유일 지배체제의 성립이라는 정치체제 특히 권력 구조의 변화가 혁명 구호의 내용 변화의 주된 요인이었다. 1970년대에는 경제적 침체가 1980년대 이후부터 2000년까지는 국가사회주의의 몰락과 심각한 경제위기 극복에 있어 혁명 구호의 포스터 내용이 영향을 미쳤다. 2012년 이후 김정은 시대부터는 포스터의 선전과 선동 구호에서 알 수 있듯이 산업의 진전도 북한 미술창작이론인 ‘주체 미술’이 ‘북한 스타일’과도 무관하지 않다는 사실을 확인하였다. 마지막으로 남북통일이 어떠한 모습으로 다가올지 모르겠지만, 디자인학 관련의 학문적 교류를 통하여 상호 이해와 고민은 지속하여야 할 것이다.

The Soft and Hard Power Politics of North Korea in 2019

Despite the media attention to North Korean missile launches and American shows of force in 2017, war was never a realistic possibility. Deterrence and the costs of war are far too high for either side to seriously contemplate using force to resolve the Korean Peninsula standoff. Deterrence will also continue to hold into the future, barring some unforeseen circumstance. In this case, when war is not an option, what do countries do? What role does soft power play in diplomacy? States resort to hard power rarely and with great caution, precisely because the stakes are so high. But just because countries are not going to war over an issue does not mean it is unimportant. In this sense, exploring how countries compete or engage in the push and pull of diplomacy below the threshold of hard and military power is a relatively understudied phenomenon. For North Korea, it is clear that a long-term strategy of focusing on diplomacy abroad and economic reforms at home is following a push to nuclearize. Only by understanding this emerging North Korean strategy can the United States and South Korea craft appropriate strategies for dealing with this intractable problem.

Evolution of Gender Politics in North Korea

Evolution of Gender Politics in North Korea

North Korean Political System and the Habits of Heart: The functions of Juche Ideology and Sinso

North Korean Political System and the Habits of Heart: The functions of Juche Ideology and Sinso

Unseen Laws- A Quantitative Approach to Developments in North Korea’s Legal System

The position of law in North Korean politics and society has been a long concern of scholars as well as politicians and activists. Some argue it would be more important to understand the extra-legal rules that run North Korea like the Ten Principles on the leadership cult as they supersede any formal laws or the constitution.1 But the actual legal developments in North Korea, which eventually also mediate those leading principles and might even limit their reach, has so far been insufficiently explored. It is easy to point to North Korean secrecy as a main reason for this lacuna. But the numerous available materials and references on North Korean legislation available today have, however, not been fully explored yet, which has severely impeded progress in the field. Even publications officially released by North Korea to foreigners offer surprisingly detailed information on legal changes and the evolution of the law-making institutions. This larger picture of legal developments already draws a more detailed picture of the institutional developments in North Korean law and the broad policy fields that had been regulated from early on in contrast to the often-assumed absence of legislation in important fields like copyright, civil law or investment. It also shows that different to a monolithic system, various law-making institutions exist and fulfil discernably different legal responsibilities. Next to this limitation in content, scholars in the field currently also have not used all approaches legal developments in the North Korea could be analysed and interpreted with. Going beyond the reading of legal texts or speculating about known titles of still unavailable legislation, quantitative approaches can be applied ranging from the simple counting of laws to more sophisticated analysis of legislative numbering often provided with legislation. Understanding the various institutions as flexible in their roles and hence adoptable to shifts in leadership and policy agendas can also provide a more realistic picture of legal practices in North Korea.

The Ethics and Politics of North Korea’s Denuclearization

The Ethics and Politics of North Korea’s Denuclearization

Adam Cathcart, Robert Winstanley-Chesters and Christopher Green (eds.), Change and Continuity in North Korean Politics.

Adam Cathcart, Robert Winstanley-Chesters and Christopher Green (eds.), Change and Continuity in North Korean Politics.