Inside the Red Box

by McEachern, Patrick

• ISBN13: 9780231153225
• ISBN10: 0231153228
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-12-01
• Publisher: Columbia Univ Pr

Summary

Traditional political models fail to account for North Korea's institutional politics, making the country's actions seem surprising or confusing when, in fact, they often conform to the regime's own logic. Drawing on recent primary materials, including North Korean speeches, commentaries, and articles, Patrick McEachern, a specialist on North Korean affairs, reveals how the state's political institutions debate policy and inform and execute strategic-level decisions.Many scholars dismiss Kim Jong-Il's regime as a "one-man dictatorship" and call him the "last totalitarian leader," but McEachern identifies three major institutions that help maintain regime continuity: the cabinet, the military, and the party. These groups hold different institutional policy platforms and debate high-level policy options both before and after Kim and his senior leadership make their final call. This method of rule may challenge expectations, but North Korea does not follow a classically totalitarian, personalistic, or corporatist model. Rather than being monolithic, McEachern argues, the regime, emerging from the crises of the 1990s, rules differently today than it did under Kim's father, Kim Il Sung. The son is less powerful and pits institutions against one another in a strategy of divide and rule. His leadership is fundamentally different: it is "post-totalitarian." Authority may be centralized, but power remains diffuse. McEachern maps this process in great detail, supplying vital perspective on North Korea's reactive policy choices, which continue to bewilder the West., reviewing a previous edition or volume

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
Views of the Regime	p. 3
Diverse Institutional Views	p. 4
Toward a New Model	p. 11
The Stakes	p. 14
Road Map	p. 16
Post-totalitarian Institutionalism	p. 18
Existing Models of North Korean Politics	p. 19
The Emergence of Post-totalitarian Institutionalism	p. 30
Post-totalitarian Politics	p. 37
Research Design	p. 42
Historical Context	p. 51
Foundations of the Founding	p. 52
Kim II Sung and Totalitarianism, 1956-1990	p. 56
The Transition Period, 1991-1998	p. 67
Post-totalitarian Institutionalism, 1998-Present	p. 75
North Korea's Political Institutions	p. 83
The Korean Workers' Party	p. 84
The Korean People's Army	p. 87
The Cabinet	p. 90
The Security Apparatus	p. 93
Supreme People's Assembly	p. 97
Subnational Governments and the Judiciary	p. 98
Institutional Jostling for Agenda Control, 1998-2001	p. 100
Taepodong-1 Launch	p. 103
The Kumchang-ri Suspected Nuclear Facility	p. 106
OPlan 5027	p. 113
The Second Chollima March	p. 118
Uncoordinated Institutions	p. 127
Missile Negotiations and the Inter-Korean Summit	p. 132
Segmenting Policy and Issue Linkages, 2001-2006	p. 141
Toward Economic Reform	p. 143
Issue Linkages: Inter-Korean and U.S. Policy	p. 147
Pyongyang Reacts to New U.S. Policy	p. 151
Regime Change Short List Concern Closes Ranks	p. 154
Linking and Delinking Issue Areas	p. 157
End of the Agreed Framework and the Second Nuclear Crisis	p. 161
Inter-Korean Relations: A Separate Track?	p. 171
Nuclear Declarations	p. 177
Diplomatic Impasse, Mutual Pressure	p. 179
"The Atmosphere Has Improved"-for a Day	p. 181
LWR Demands and Banco Delta Asia	p. 183
Cross-Border Cooperation: The Only Game in Town	p. 184
Bureaucratic Cracks on "Sanctions" and Missile Tests	p. 186
Hitting Rock Bottom: The Nuclear Test	p. 189
Policy Reversals, 2006-2008	p. 194
Return to Six-Party Talks	p. 195
Cabinet Economic Reformer Replaced with Economic Reformer	p. 198
Chris Hill in Pyongyang	p. 199
Presidential Turnover in South Korea	p. 201
Refocusing on the United States	p. 205
Continuity Amid Change: The North Korean Economy	p. 211
Conclusion	p. 215
North Korea's Post-totalitarian Institutionalism	p. 215
An Evolved Polity	p. 217
Decision Making	p. 219
Importance of the Internal Mechanism	p. 227
North Korea, Comparative Politics, and Downstream Consequences	p. 238
North Korea's Future	p. 241
Notes	p. 253
Bibliography	p. 291
Index	p. 299
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Copyright information

Introduction

"North Korea is a country that has a very vertically oriented governing structure to be sure . . . but at the same time it is [a] place for politics. And so I think it is fair to say that there are people in North Korea who really are not with the program here, [who would] really rather continue to be producing this plutonium for whatever reason." -- Chris Hill, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs. March 25, 2008

Kim Jong Il, chairman of the National Defense Commission and general secretary of the Korean Worker's Party, hosted President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea in Pyongyang for a historic summit in June 2000. One of the long-standing issues under discussion was the presences of American troops on the Korean peninsula. The DPRK ostensibly existed to protect Koreans and their special, moral, socialist way of life from the violent, greedy, and uncivilized imperialists and puppet counterparts south of the DMZ.

Party Secretary Kim Yong-sun of the DPRK told the South Korean president that the U.S. military must remove all its troops from the peninsula. Kim Jong Il reportedly interrupted, "What problem would there be if the U.S. military remained?" Seeming surprised, Kim Yong-sun began presenting the party line. The U.S. military threatened North Korea and impaired national reunification. The long-held North Korean position was simple: the United States must withdraw.

The North Korean party secretary did not get his whole sentence out. Kim Jong Il again interrupted, "Secretary Yong-sun, stop that. Even though I try to do something, people under me oppose it like this. Perhaps the military, too, must have the same view of the U.S. military as Secretary Yong-sun. The U.S. military should not attack us. But, in President Kim's explanation, there are some aspects I concur with. [The U.S. military] need not withdraw now. It will be good for the U.S. military to remain to maintain peace even after reunification."

Kim Jong Il was either making history or playing tactical games. This incident could easily have been staged. However, he also may have been expressing genuine conflict within his regime. Groups within North Korea may reveal preferences, and Kim may have to balance and placate these groups. My theory of North Korean politics holds out the possibility that events like this one are not staged. North Korea's highest-level defector, Hwang Jang Yop, has described Kim as one who often publicly castigates senior officials on a whim. Political psychologists note that he is prone to impulsive remarks and policy stands. It is possible that this display actually reflected different bureaucratic positions within the state that Kim seeks to control. Kim is not a captive of his subordinates. He can make decisions and pursue initiatives solely on his own accord, but this is an incomplete understanding of the state's operations. The core argument of this book is that Kim is critically important but so are North Korea's political institutions.

It is not uncommon for North Korea specialists, especially in government circles, to assert that Kim is the only important node in North Korean politics. However, Kim cannot rule by fiat; individuals and institutions below him matter. At the very least, they inform and execute strategic-level decisions and make operational decisions based on their understanding of Kim's wishes. An important goal for any analyst of North Korean politics is to understand how this internal politics works. Whether recognized or not, assumptions about the North Korean political system shape one's view of how it reacts to the external environment. A poor understanding of North Korean politics will inevitably lead one to call the products of that political system (its policy choices) "surprising" or "perplexing."

Existing models of North Korean politics do not sufficiently explain the regime's political process. North Korean actions are continually labeled surprising precisely because of this inadequate view of its political operations. This book seeks to explain -- and to a lesser extent predict -- North Korea's policy choices based on a revised understanding of its basic functions.

In this specific incident, Kim Jong Il may have decided to shift course given this changed external environment, but what explains the stop-and-go nature of important policies and strategic changes in course? In the economic realm, for example, why suffer the costs of loosened administrative control over the economy to foster economic efficiency if the state is simply going to reverse these gains the following year? How can the regime pursue contradictory policies simultaneously, and why do some senior leaders cautiously voice opposition to decided policy if all policy choices originate from Kim, the "nerve center"? The various monolithic ideal types I describe are useful starting points but are ultimately inadequate for describing and predicting North Korean political choices. Incorporating North Korea's institutional politics into a model of the regime's functions that includes Kim's central role goes a long way toward aiding our understanding of Pyongyang's policy choices and beyond.

Additionally, the summit statement reminds analysts that establishing the meaning and authenticity of statements remains challenging. Are North Korean statements merely tactical efforts to deceive the outside world, or do they also serve as a conduit for internal communication? Pyongyang's focus on information security leads it to try to deceive hostile states even more than most governments. However, concerns about internal threats to Kim's power lead the state to stovepipe information or compartmentalize access to data in such a way as to restrict cross-institutional collaboration and communication. Demand for cross-institutional communication prompts leaders to debate strategic policy choices in the North Korean press, where central leadership can keep a close eye on these communications. Systematically analyzing these data in context can help the outside observer see the interaction between various interests inside North Korea.

Views of the Regime

The popular view that only one man matters in North Korea quickly breaks down upon investigation. One may hypothesize that policy reversals are a function of a dictator ultimately unsure of his own decisions and second-guessing himself. Of course, this does not square well with either the popular or the scholarly image of the dictator. Instead, Kim may be playing tactical games merely to sustain a regime lacking any existential purpose. This, too, inadequately explains a host of specific policy programs and general goals, such as reunification and anti-imperialism. Indeed, one may even label this cartoonish view of the North Korean state as a straw man; much more sophisticated views of the North Korean state exist that still present the state as some type of monolith.

A number of excellent accounts have been written about U.S.--North Korean negotiations. These explain in great detail the bureaucratic conflict within the U.S. government during these negotiations but rarely refer to any substate actors in North Korea. While these thoughtful authors recognize that some internal dynamic must operate in North Korea, they admit that this process is unknown. Unknown does not imply unknowable.

Partisans in the debate over whether to engage the North question whether the state has or can uphold any of its international commitments. Both sides can select data to bolster their argument, but this selection often does not serve a fruitful analytical purpose. It does not help explain why North Korea upholds its international commitments sometimes and breaks them at other times. Nor does it explain, for example, why the opaque state pursues a risky economic policy of marketization simply to change course later.

I argue that Pyongyang's divergent policy choices reflect, in part, different views and interests within the state. Kim must react to domestic as well as international stimuli. One must first recognize that internal politics matters and then address specifically how North Korean internal politics functions to produce different policy outputs. Such a project has utility for comparative theorists and for policy analysts concerned with how the state functions. The project focuses on the question of how, because a consistently demonstrated pattern of North Korean politics inherently refutes the argument that sub-Kim domestic politics does not matter.

Diverse Institutional Views

The three primary political institutions in North Korea are the Korean Workers' Party (the party), the Korean People's Army (the military), and the cabinet (the government). Chapters 5 to 7 detail the policy positions these institutions express in the official media and how these institutions carefully expose diverse policy preferences to an internal audience, recognizing that foreign observers and the top leadership may read their articles. This exercise exposes a number of specific and general debates, including budget fights over the relative merits of allocating funding to agriculture and consumer goods versus the military and heavy industry. It shows high-level cabinet members attending ceremonies committing rail and road connections across the DMZ and hosting South Korean trade delegations at the same time that party and military officials speak of insulating the state from foreign pressures and engaging in deadly interactions with South Korea.

Specific institutions regularly and openly claim revealed policy preferences as their own and even question policy directions sanctioned by Kim. For example, in 1998 a senior military official said, "The Korean People's Army expected nothing from the agreement [Agreed Framework] and had no interest in dialogue and negotiation through diplomatic channels. Now, the United States, throwing away the mask of 'appeasement' and 'engagement' . . . prove[s] that the KPA's [Korean People's Army] judgment and stand were completely correct." It is only human to want to express to one's colleagues when one's policy preferences should be implemented or to claim victory by being "right." More important, it is common to rational modes of policy creation to use the information resources available in different parts of the system. Communications between working-level and senior-level officials below Kim and his inner circle are necessary for rational rule.

Economic Policy

This more-divided political system has allowed greater discussions on several important issues. The cabinet, party, and military have expressed distinct views on the strategic direction of the North Korean economy. Increased marketization has waxed and waned over the time under analysis as the regime's three institutions have argued for and against allowing the societally driven economic changes to continue. Though party and military officials favor greater socialist orthodoxy in the North's economy, market economics plays a greater role under Kim Jong Il's system than under Kim Il Sung's regime. North Korea still maintains significant elements of a command economy, and the state has not made any irreversible decisions to comprehensively reform the economy. But the scale of the command economy has shrunk in the last fifteen years.

All three institutions and Kim openly recognize the need for economic revitalization, but they differ on how to achieve this goal. The cabinet has been at the forefront of advocating a greater role for markets, decentralized enterprise management, and other mechanisms to increase the efficiency of the North Korean economy. The party rejects a platform they label "reform and opening," warning that the cabinet's policy platform risks bringing down the regime as happened in Eastern Europe. They present a nationalistic argument for the regime to pursue its own Korean way of enhancing economic fortunes through socialism. This often amounts to calls to redouble worker efforts, control cabinet "functionaries," prioritize certain industries, and emphasize work campaigns. The military likewise takes exception to the cabinet's economic policy but has a more limited set of institutional interests to protect. It argues that opening undermines its specific mission to provide security. It opposes inter-Korean economic projects and nonstate actors engaging in commercial activities that undermine their security objective and reduce the prestige of military officers in favor of the "new rich" class of entrepreneurs.

U.S. Policy

Kim Jong Il's North Korea has also demonstrated that its system functions according to a different model in the critical areas of anti-imperialism and reunification policy. The concrete manifestations of these two areas are Pyongyang's foreign policy toward the United States and its policy toward South Korea. The party's main source of input into policy decisions is ideological guidance. As such, it consistently presents the case against accommodating the American "imperialists" in diplomatic forums. It seizes on unfavorable news, presents historical narratives, and makes pure ideological claims that undermine the Foreign Ministry's efforts to engage Washington. The party takes great pride in the high-profile ballistic missile and nuclear programs, touting them as accomplishments of its science and technology leadership. For the party, North Korea did not sacrifice to develop these technologies, which it views as too important not only to national defense but also to national pride to simply trade away for paper commitments from inherently untrustworthy imperialists.

The military also opposes negotiating with the Americans. Its view is that Washington seeks to limit North Korea's coercive potential, particularly in the missile and nuclear areas. The Korean People's Army objects to limitations that a foreign power seeks to place on its ability to defend the state. This insertion of the military institution into politics takes a limited but pragmatic strategic vision. The military objects to negotiations because such diplomatic activity hinders its ability to provide for the state's military-based security. The KPA does not see nuclear weapons as a bargaining chip to extract diplomatic concessions. Rather the weapons are an important element of national security that deter a superior fighting force from pursuing a regime-change strategy. Consequently, the military attempts to operationalize these generic preferences at specific turns.

The cabinet's Foreign Ministry is the only institution that consistently presents the benefits of engaging with the Americans. As the lead organization in each of the different sets of talks during this period, the Foreign Ministry has presented the value of negotiating on missile and nuclear issues by highlighting the concessions the other side provided. It presents North Korea's positions to its foreign counterparts fiercely and has not shied away from ultimatums. But when relations soured, the cabinet often simply went silent while the party and military presented reasons why such an engagement was never productive or worthwhile. This cabinet's strategic interests conflict with the military's and party's interests and platforms; it presents a strikingly different future for the North Korean state, with American security guarantees and economic revitalization.

Inter-Korean Policy

The party, the military, and the cabinet likewise demonstrate three internally consistent agendas on inter-Korea policy. Though all three groups support eventual reunification, they advocate different policies to achieve this end. The party presents a 1950s-style reunification path. That position is so nostalgic that some analysts question whether the party still genuinely maintains a desire to reunify the state through force. South Korea is now a successful democracy with a military likely capable of defeating the North even without American assistance. When Kim Il Sung's forces crossed the thirty-eighth parallel in 1950, the North enjoyed military superiority over the South, and Seoul's antidemocratic tendencies at the time weakened its claim to legitimate rule. Pyongyang also enjoyed support from a much wider group of leftists among the South Korean populace that opposed the South's rightist government in the early years of the inter-Korean competition compared to today. Seoul's superpower ally continued to demobilize its military forces after World War II, especially in Asia and even more so in Korea. Kim Il Sung enjoyed Soviet political support that brought reluctant Chinese support well in advance of Beijing's actually committing 3 million "volunteers" to the Korean War. Pyongyang had a much better chance of forcing reunification on the North's terms in 1950 than today.

The party maintains that, eventually, conditions will be ripe for a 1950s-style reunification drive again. The "great patriotic war" is immortalized in North Korean lore despite its recognized role in leveling the whole of North Korea and much of the South. The United States is not demobilizing, but it may -- someday -- withdraw from Asia or at least might decide not to get involved in a long and bloody second Korean war, especially if it ran the risk of nuclear escalation. The Soviet Union is gone, but Pyongyang could conceivably enjoy Russian or Chinese political support in international organizations like the UN Security Council to preserve peninsular stability and limit U.S. presence on the Asian mainland. China's commitment to the North explicitly rules out assistance if Pyongyang initiates a conflict, and it is highly questionable whether Beijing will defend Pyongyang as its legacy treaty commitments promise in case of internal collapse or even foreign invasion. South Korea still has a leftist social element, but it has been much weakened since democratization and is not likely to violently rise up in a militarily significant way against its democratic government in face of a North Korean advance.

Nevertheless, the party takes the long view and prefers to prepare for the day when the North may reunify the Korean nation under one flag. When it is weighed against its alternative and incorporates the individual self-interest of elites, the party's position is more understandable. North Korea is not a state with favorable options. Reforming and opening up bring their own risks, especially to regime elites. If the state reforms in the way of Eastern Europe, revolutionary aims would be lost, decades of sacrifice and family efforts would be for naught, and the physical security of regime elites might be put in jeopardy. Even if the North is integrated into South Korean society under the most favorable of conditions for these elites, they would lose much of their privilege. In short, it is not irrational for this group to want to extend the current system as long as possible rather than take the short-term risks of regime collapse and loss of social positions -- and possibly the loss of their lives. In practice, this means the party rejects increased economic contacts with the South and stresses military strength.

The military's inter-Korean position is similar in practice to the party's. The military uses fewer explicit justifications for its actions, but it, too, takes exception to the cabinet's inter-Korean economic projects that allow greater cross-border rail and road traffic. It presents military security as a nonnegotiable goal; other issues should not interfere with the KPA's ability to provide for the state's security. The military continually notes in the North Korean media that it stands ready to reunify the state by force. Tactical advances and the motivation of KPA soldiers can assure victory, the military leaders confidently argue. Whether they actually believe they can force the South into a protracted war and avoid American intervention is not knowable. Koreans have a long history of fiercely defending their independence against all odds, and those who gambled and won in North Korea two generations ago put themselves and their families in positions of power for a long time in a system that otherwise makes climbing the social ladder extremely difficult. More importantly, military leaders must prepare to carry out orders to go to war, so it is natural that these leaders try to position resources most effectively for such a contingency. The fortress state means prioritized resource allocation to the military, sealed northern and southern borders, and developing all available weapons systems, including nuclear weapons and their means of delivery.

The cabinet's inter-Korean policy is the most distinct. It does not reject reunification but does not mention it much either. Inter-Korean policy for the cabinet is wrapped up in a different view of the future of the state. The cabinet has a more difficult time articulating a strategic vision for a unified peninsula under the North's control as a by-product of its advocacy. Instead, it aims at more immediate economic goals and a long-term vision of a more sustainable economy. Foreign investment, special economic zones, development assistance, and humanitarian aid provide economic and social benefits. The special economic zones especially provide foreign investment with fewer immediate risks since they are fairly well insulated from the wider society. The cabinet's efforts to attract more foreign investment, development assistance, and humanitarian aid, especially from South Korean government sources, require improved North-South ties. The cabinet manages this relationship with an emphasis on the economic benefits it provides, but its policy does not logically end with reunification. As such, the cabinet opens itself to criticism from party and military quarters that such policies abandon a core, emotionally and rationally held goal of Koreans.

These debates reflect how North Korea's institutions embody the competing goals the regime must manage. There is a role for ideology but also for pragmatism. The party is an important institution but only one of three peer institutions that compete for influence. The nature and functions of North Korean politics have changed. North Korea has undergone an evolution, not a revolution. North Korea did not reshape its politics from scratch, but how the regime functions remains a key question for any student of North Korea.

These policy differences are puzzling if one subscribes to a monolithic view of the North Korean government. Why does Kim permit this dissent? Is the dissent genuine? If not, what is its purpose? Why would the regime attempt to demonstrate its absolute control to both internal and external audiences yet allow evidence of disunity? How can one make sense of this political system that consistently defies conventional expectations? It is my contention that North Korea's bureaucracies work at crosscurrents; recognizing that the river flows in different directions simultaneously is an important first step in crafting an effective navigation strategy. Kim is still the most important part of the North Korean system, but he is only one part. Recognizing where the others fit into the puzzle of North Korean politics helps build a better understanding of the regime's political choices.

Toward a New Model

Understanding how the state functions, crafts policy, and conducts politics is the critical first step in explaining and even predicting policy choices. Continually surprising and perplexing outcomes suggest that existing models of North Korean politics may be outdated or wrong. Despite this demand for understanding, few have attempted in recent years to comprehensively model the North Korea political system. This book is intended to fill this void.

There is demand for scholarship on the North Korean state among both comparativists and foreign-policy practitioners, but the supply of methodologically rigorous scholarship is low. A review of the two major comparative-politics journals and the three general political-science journals yields only one article on the state since its founding. Likewise, some area specialists recognize that the state is poorly understood in both policy and academic circles. This problem has not been resolved. The small amount of area-studies literature broadly related to this topic does not speak to the comparative literature and usually has little or no explicit theoretical discussion. Area specialists have largely avoided studying the state's domestic politics altogether or have applied the same limited data points on the North's internal functions. This scholarly chasm has hampered our collective understanding. I attempt to bridge this gap by building on the strong theoretical tradition of comparative politics, the rich empirical work of area studies, and my own contribution to these areas.

One reason for the dearth of scholarship is the required refrain that North Korea is a data-poor country. While this is true, it is often overstated and perhaps discourages new researchers before they even begin. The lack of empirical research on North Korea is a great opportunity to make significant statements and expose substantial "new" data that have been largely overlooked. There are more untapped scholarly resources available on this state than most others. Furthermore, North Korea's controlled media is a useful window into the state's function precisely because it is controlled. Dismissing this information as thoughtless propaganda loses an opportunity to look inside this controlled regime's operations. New data and patterns can be discerned when the state is studied systematically.

North Korea suffered a confluence of crises in the 1990s. The state's founder and national hero died in 1994, and his son took power. China and Russia established diplomatic relations with South Korea, and the United States came precariously close to war with North Korea during the first nuclear crisis in 1993--94. Pyongyang lost its Soviet benefactor in 1991, notably losing energy and food aid. The state suffered extreme economic hardship, and decades of poor agricultural policy choices, along with North Korea's periodic intense flooding, plunged the state into famine in the late 1990s. Multiple analysts argued that the regime's days were numbered, suggesting the state would not survive the decade. While the state did not collapse, these forces did alter it. North Korea's political evolution rapidly accelerated, dislodging some elements, retaining others. The assumption that North Korea's government functions in much the same way as it did under Kim Il Sung is highly questionable.

The centralized narratives generally hold that both Kims relied on a small set of inner circle advisers to craft national policy. Some of these individuals command large bureaucracies, but most do not. They are powerful because of their relationship with Kim not their relationship with the bureaucracies they command. Power flows from the top: Kim uses carrots (gifts) and sticks (purges and threats) to control this group. Kim may direct policy through a favored institution, such as the military or the party, but policy innovation comes from the center. The major bureaucracies are composed of functionaries. In Stalin's terms, these are "transmission belts" to implement small-group decisions. When policy fails, functionaries are necessarily to blame for failing to properly implement sage policy. Both power and authority are centralized.

This centralized narrative comes in various forms with varying degrees of state dynamism built into the explanation. The state is Stalinist, post-Stalinist, personalist, neosocialist corporatist, an eroding totalitarian state, or an eroding socialist state. Kim rules as an absolute monarch through the military, the party, or an inner circle of advisers and kin. Some of these models suggest that there is movement away from Kim Il Sung's more thorough power and authority, but Kim Jong Il does not radically depart from his father's mode of rule. While I expand upon the meaning and arguments of these characterizations, I ultimately find them lacking. I argue that these monolithic ideal types fail to capture the pluralism that helps distinguish the younger Kim's rule from his father's. My central thesis is that while Kim Il Sung's rule can be described as totalitarian, Kim Jong Il rules through a more decentralized, post-totalitarian, institutionally plural state.

Pluralism is often associated with democracy, so I should be clear that I am not suggesting that North Korea is democratizing. Quite the contrary, I argue that the state has stabilized as a type of autocratic government but that not all autocratic regimes are alike, and teasing out North Korea's specific variety has utility.

In this type of state, interests are more diffuse, and institutional preferences are debated cautiously but publicly. Debates are not first and foremost personal; they are primarily institutional. Important policy differences are not mainly formed by individuals closely tied to Kim but by large bureaucracies with consistent interests and the capacity to produce detailed knowledge. National policy outcomes are determined by the interaction of three second-echelon institutions: cabinet, military, and party. Much of the policy innovation comes from below. In these cases, Kim and his inner circle make the final decision, but the three institutions present policy papers and options. Authority is centralized, but power is diffuse.

Not all policy innovation originates with the nerve center, but it is an overstatement to suggest that none of it does. With his centralized authority, Kim has the ability to accept or reject advice. His institutions can present three distinct options, any of which he may accept. Or he can reject them all and go with his own fourth option. He is not simply a passive broker of low-level bureaucrats, and he enjoys access to additional sources of information that most of his subordinates simply never see. On questions of high politics such as the missile and nuclear issues, Kim can centralize and micromanage the process more thoroughly than on issues of low politics. Personally micromanaging economic policy would prove much more difficult, given the large number of lower-level decisions and transactions required. But even on the nuclear question, Kim relies on subordinates to negotiate with foreign powers, including the United States. He allows discussion and debate on these issues in the official press and acts upon distinct lines of policy advice from subordinates. Issues of high politics are more centralized than issues of low politics, but they still follow the general outline provided by the model I present.

If this hypothesis is empirically correct, then this mode of rule produces different expectations than the previous understandings of North Korea's modus operandi. North Korea is not a simple organizational unit with one man making core decisions. The state processes foreign actions through a rigid and predictable political apparatus and returns reactive policy choices based on the external and internal considerations. Treating North Korea as a black box overlooks the critical internal political calculations that often modify policy choices. Anticipating North Korea's responses to foreign actions is not always intuitive, but this theory should improve our predictions.

The Stakes

North Korea is of great interest to foreign-policy practitioners and scholars alike. It is the world's poorest state with a nuclear weapon and has demonstrated its willingness and ability to transfer its nuclear know-how and equipment to the Middle East. It has the largest military conscription rate in the world, develops and exports ballistic missiles, and continually threatens its neighbors. Humanitarian catastrophes and a fundamental denial of human rights are chronic problems. It is the only communist state to weather a hereditary succession, and one of the few remaining one-party communist states to survive the end of the Cold War. The state has been linked to counterfeiting foreign currency, drug running, and terrorist incidents.

North Korea shares a land or sea border with the second-, third-, and thirteenth-largest economies in the world. Though economic numbers are imprecise, the CIA's World Factbook lists it as the ninety-fifth largest economy in the world -- just behind Cameroon. In 2007 only three national economies in the world suffered a worse growth rate than North Korea, though this seems to have moderated in 2008. It has commanded roughly half of China's annual development assistance in recent years and requires food and energy aid from its neighbors, its primary adversary (the United States), and the international community. It has experimented with limited market reforms only to backtrack later. North Korea rightfully commands the world's interest, but it is poorly understood.

The common element in these issues is the North Korean regime. Understanding the North's internal processes helps with attempts to gauge its reaction to policy choices made in Washington, Seoul, Beijing, Tokyo, and other interested capitals. I am, at the outset of this study, agnostic on the normative question of selecting between policy options toward North Korea ranging from accommodation to pressure strategies. I do seek to assist analysts interested in predicting North Korean reactions to these policies based on an informed understanding of the state's decision-making structure.

Understanding how North Korea's political system functions offers critical insight into a wider group of authoritarian regimes. North Korea is arguably the most centralized authoritarian state in existence today. It has been described as simultaneously fitting the mold of the totalitarian, personalist, and corporatist models. Theories and typologies of authoritarian states are comparative in nature; thus understanding North Korea's domestic politics has useful applications for the wider study of authoritarian regimes. And if the state that comes closest to the proposed ideal type departs significantly from theoretical expectations, this may suggest that important revisions are needed for these typologies.

While many of the former Soviet satellite states in Europe transitioned toward democracy, many regimes in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Asia arguably share some common characteristics of a post-totalitarian state. An updated and revised view of North Korean politics has direct relevance for explaining a wider group of states that do not seem to be moving toward democracy. In this way, I hope this book will be relevant to readers interested in how this general group of states' craft policy, sustain themselves in the face of challenges, evolve, and react to regional and global foreign actions.

Finally, the universe of communist states that weathered the Soviet collapse is small. North Korea is the least reformed of the remaining communist governments. I trace the process by which North Korea evolved politically and prevented its own collapse through economic crisis, famine, international pressure, and its first and only leadership transition. Explanation requires theory, and well-crafted theory may be exportable to other countries. Authoritarian resilience is the other side of the coin of the well-researched question of democratic transitions and has bearing on this research program. The evolution and resiliency of North Korea's government informs both the question of how post-totalitarian regimes operate and the dynamic process of postcommunist (non-)transitions.

Road Map

Chapter 2 reviews the competing theories of North Korean politics, including the totalitarian, post-totalitarian, personalist, and corporatist models. I lay out my theoretical model, explaining why the state evolved from its totalitarian origins and how the system consequently functions today. I conclude the theoretical section with a research design and describe my data sources and means of evaluating this theoretical model.

Chapter 3 documents the historical evolution of North Korean politics under Kim Il Sung, while chapter 4 discusses the modified institutional structure of Kim Jong Il's rule. The younger Kim did not accept wholesale his father's mode of rule, nor did he re-create the state from scratch. Chapter 3 describes the founding national institutions, ideology, and mode of rule. It shows how these gradually evolved under Kim Il Sung's watchful eye, including formal constitutional revisions and a general decline of the Juche ideology. (Juche, the official national ideology of North Korea, is discussed more fully in chapter 3.) The second part of the chapter acknowledges several shocks to the system in the mid-1990s that accelerated the state's transformation. The collapse of its Soviet benefactor, nuclear crises, the death of the state's founder and national hero, and famine jeopardized the existence of the state. The younger Kim had to adapt to deal with the existing realities. The state's "emergency management" and response to social pressures from the famine altered North Korea's politics. Chapter 4 focuses on the resulting political order, providing relevant background on North Korea's constitutional institutions not included in the general historical narrative.

Chapters 5 through 7, which constitute the empirical tests of this model, contextualize North Korean policy debates observed in the press and provided by foreign interlocutors. The model is dynamic. In these chapters I explain how the state processes specific examples of foreign actions and produces policy responses. I go inside the red box to construct this narrative rather than making blind assumptions about internal dynamics. I document what the key North Korean institutional leaders said in commentaries, articles, and major speeches and show how these positions are consistent for the leaders of a particular institution with variation between institutions. I evaluate how these leaders communicate their institution's preferences to other institutional leaders and in some cases how they even resist high-level policy choices. Strategic positions by institution are remarkably consistent, responding in the same general frame to specific challenges. However, national policy varies. These chapters evaluate how these debates frame the discussion internally and explain otherwise perplexing national policy choices.

Chapter 8 concludes with three important issues. First, does my model fit the data better than competing models reviewed in chapter 2 (and, in turn, what are downstream consequences of the model) Second, I evaluate the effect of this model on our general understanding of authoritarian regimes. Does this revised understanding of North Korea's politics offer lessons for other states in the post-totalitarian world? Finally, I analyze general lessons for foreign-policy practitioners. Policy choices will remain normative, political decisions, but understanding North Korea's political system can aid a balanced view of the concrete and predictable trade-offs involved in these choices.

...

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Published by Columbia University Press and copyrighted © 2010 by Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher, except for reading and browsing via the World Wide Web. Users are not permitted to mount this file on any network servers. For more information, please visit the permissions page on our Web site.