A Study on the Religious Policies of the North Korean regime after liberation and the types of Christian response to it : From 1945 to 1947

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 355-374
Author(s):  
Myoung Bae Kim ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The North ◽  
North Korean Regime

The juche H-bomb? North Korea, nuclear weapons and regime-state survival

2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (4) ◽  
pp. 1051-1068
Author(s):  
Edward Howell
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
North Korea ◽  
International Perspective ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Rogue States ◽  
The North ◽  
North Korean Defectors ◽  
Domestic Level ◽  
North Korean Regime ◽  
State Survival

Abstract Existing scholarship on North Korea's nuclear programme remains overwhelmingly centred around questions of containment or engagement with the North Korean regime-state, amid international calls for denuclearization. Yet, scholarship has rarely interrogated the precise value of nuclear weapons to the regime-state. This article develops a new theoretical framework of nuclear ideology to explore the puzzle of the survival of North Korea. This framework aims to show how the North Korean nuclear programme is deeply entrenched within the state ideology of juche, as one device for continued regime-state survival. Through interviews with elite North Korean defectors and textual analysis of North Korean and international sources, I show that North Korea's nuclear ideology has been constructed according to different frames of meaning, targeting referent actors of international ‘enemy’ powers and domestic audiences. This article concludes that nuclear ideology functions primarily as a tool to arouse domestic legitimacy for the North Korean regime-state, by targeting elite actors within the highly stratified domestic population. From an international perspective, perception of North Korea's survival remains tied largely to the regime-state's physical possession of nuclear weapons. This article has extremely timely theoretical and policy implications given the current ‘dialogue’ between US and North Korean leaders. First, it opens up fruitful avenues of inquiry surrounding questions of the legitimacy of rogue states within international relations. Secondly, this article calls for a more robust understanding of the domestic-level politics of North Korea, in order to understand the regime-state's foreign policy decisions vis-à-vis its nuclear programme.

scholarly journals The North Korean Economy: Current Situation, Crisis, and Possible Scenarios

2006 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-46
Author(s):  
Seok-Hyang Kim
Keyword(s):  
North Korea ◽  
Political System ◽  
Foreign Currency ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Farmers Markets ◽  
Korean Economy ◽  
The North ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
North Korean Regime

For more than a half century, the international community largely ignored North Korea. Since 1990, however, the situation has changed dramatically and North Korea has begun to attract increasing international attention. Throughout the 1990s, scenarios of a North Korean collapse were in vogue. Yet, these estimations were proved to be wrong. It is now widely accepted that North Korea is relatively stable in the sense that it seems to have little trouble keeping its political system intact and functioning. By now, the most striking aspect of the North Korean political system is its extraordinary resilience. Why then has the North not yet collapsed, despite the chronic shortages of food, energy, and foreign currency? In this paper, I would like to raise two main questions. The first question is: “How serious are the difficulties of the North Korean economy?” And the second is: “What actions has the North Korean regime taken to resolve these difficulties and how effective those actions have been?” The North Korean regime has been striving to readjust and improve its economic strucrure since the 1970s. The regime has sought foreign capital and technology. However, the regime has been attempting to reformulate its economic structure within the strict framework of the existing political system whose survival was its paramount concern, and therefore it has failed to link the domestic economy with the world economy. What the regime has been doing is, on the one hand, to map out policy measures designed to open up its doors, while on the other hand escalating its ideological and political campaigns to prevent the people from being “contaminated” by a capiralist culture which it anticipated would develop as a result of such measures. It is no wonder that, under these conditions, all attempts at reforming met with only limited success at best. The North Korean regime, however, has negotiated with its people the expansion of its second economy, despite its reluctance to do so. In fact, the regime explicitly defined farmers' markets as remnants of “backward” capitalism which would become extinct as socialism reached a higher stage of development. It is expected that the ruling hierarchy in North Korea will be able to survive for a considerable period of time, despite the threatening economic crisis. So far in North Korea, the need to safeguard the existing political regime has been given far greater priority than the need to bring about reform. However, the North Korean regime, if it intends to survive, will be compelled to carry out full-scale reforms sooner or later.

North Korea and Reunification

Asian Survey ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (5) ◽  
pp. 859-881
Author(s):  
Terence Roehrig
Keyword(s):  
North Korea ◽  
The South ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Korean Economy ◽  
The North ◽  
North Korean Regime

Efforts to denuclearize North Korea continue, but it is highly doubtful whether this goal will be reached. An often-expressed fear of a nuclear-armed North Korea is that it might use this capability to coerce reunification with the South on its terms. Though its leaders often speak of the desire for reunification, North Korea will not and could not pursue a successful nuclear coercion strategy because it carries an inordinate amount of risk, even for Pyongyang, which raises serious doubts about the credibility of its nuclear threats, the possibility of success, and the likelihood of pursuing such a strategy in the first place. And even if North Korea were to succeed, its efforts to integrate the South Korean economy would be a disaster, leading to the end of the North Korean regime.

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