Political Change in North Korea

Asian Survey ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 773-800 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Haggard ◽  
Luke Herman ◽  
Jaesung Ryu
Keyword(s):  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Kim Jong Il ◽  
The Military

During the succession from Kim Jong Il to Kim Jong Un, North Korea witnessed a revival of party institutions. However, the most distinctive feature of the transition was a succession of purges that replaced powerful figures from the Kim Jong Il era with new loyalists. The system remains personalist, but with strong reliance on the military and security apparatus.

Defining the Nature and Future of the Party–Military Relations in North Korea

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jongseok Woo
Keyword(s):  
North Korea ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Kim Jong Il ◽  
Military Control ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military ◽  
Near Future

Since Kim Jong-il officially launched his Songun politics in 1998, conflicting assessments have generated two competing arguments regarding the political role of the Korean People’s Army (KPA). The military garrison state argument suggests that Songun politics brought about the decline of the party and political ascendance of the military, while the party’s army model argues that the KPA is still the party’s army and under the party’s firm control. This article suggests that the debate mischaracterizes the KPA’s political place in North Korea and that the military has not been a politically influential organ from the state-building to the current Kim Jong-un era. This article identifies two distinct patterns of military control mechanisms—namely partisan (1960s–1990s) and personalistic (1998–2008)—and argues that the different control methods have little to do with the KPA’s political strength or weakness. Rather, they merely reflect the dictator’s ruling method of choice for regime survival. The analysis illustrates that the current Kim Jong-un regime is more stable than many outside observers may estimate, and a military coup is highly unlikely in the near future.

The Party Vanishes

2019 ◽  
pp. 475-500
Author(s):  
A. James McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Xi Jinping ◽  
Kim Il Sung ◽  
Fidel Castro ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Kim Jong Il ◽  
The World ◽  
New Generation ◽  
The Military

This chapter considers three of prominent socialist states that were not directly affected by the revolutions of 1989–1991—North Korea, China, and Cuba. At the time, these states had recognized that they, too, were no longer living in the world of Marx and Lenin. In different ways, each of these states drifted away from the different conceptions of single-party rule. In North Korea, the break was complete. Under successive despots, Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un, the party's leading role was fully supplanted by the institution of dynastic rule. In China, the shift was gradual and less conspicuous. A new generation of leaders, represented by Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping, routinely invoked the principle of party rule to justify their policies. But they did not necessarily practice it. Indeed, by the 2000s, one was hard-pressed to say what specifically made the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) communist. Only Fidel Castro showed any consistency, but in a way that did not serve the party idea. Although he had two options to institutionalize his vision, the party and the military, he evidently remained convinced until his final days that he was the epicenter of his country's revolution.

North Korea in 1982: Continuing Revolution under Kim Jong Il

Asian Survey ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-109
Author(s):  
Rinn-Sup Shinn
Keyword(s):  
North Korea ◽  
Kim Jong Il

scholarly journals War and peace in liberated North Korea: Soviet military administration and the creation of North Korean police force in 1945

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Vasilii Lebedev
Keyword(s):  
North Korea ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Korean Society ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
The North ◽  
Military Administration ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
The Military

Abstract The North Korean police were arguably one of the most important organisations in liberated North Korea. It was instrumental in stabilising the North Korean society and eventually became one of the backbones for both the new North Korean regime and its military force. Scholars of different political orientation have attempted to reconstruct its early history leading to a set of views ranging from the “traditionalist” sovietisation concept to the more contemporary “revisionist” reconstruction that portrayed it as the cooperation of North Korean elites with the Soviet authorities in their bid for the control over the politics and the military, in which the Soviets merely played the supporting role. Drawing from the Soviet archival documents, this paper presents a third perspective, arguing that initially, the Soviet military administration in North Korea did not pursue any clear-cut political goals. On the contrary, the Soviet administration initially viewed North Koreans with distrust, making Soviets constantly conduct direct interventions to prevent North Korean radicals from using the police in their political struggle.

scholarly journals The religious phenomenon of Juche ideology as a political tool

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fransiskus I. Widjaja ◽  
Noh I. Boiliu ◽  
Irfan F. Simanjuntak ◽  
Joni M.P. Gultom ◽  
Fredy Simanjuntak
Keyword(s):  
North Korea ◽  
The State ◽  
Communist Country ◽  
Kim Il Sung ◽  
The People ◽  
Kim Jong Il ◽  
Juche Ideology ◽  
Modern Era

This study aims to determine the motive that led to the establishment of Juche by Kim Il Sung amidst the influence of communism and its transformation into religion in North Korea. North Korea is a communist country dictated by Kim Jong-Un of the Kim dynasty and known for its cruelty. The country underwent several changes from Marxism-Leninism to familism to determine its strength in Juche. This ideology that acts as a religion was influenced and strengthened Kim Jong Il to Kim Jong-Un and built by shifting the concept of marxism-Leninism to construct a new understanding of Juche. It will be demonstrated that this ideology was influenced by Confucianism, Christianity, Nationalism, Chinese Communism, and Russian Communism. In the modern era, imperialism was used as an ideological tool to restrict backwardness. This theory allegedly helped Kim Il-Sung establish a unitary, one-person rule over North Korea. ‘It will be examined whether Juche ideology is a tool the state has used to convince people of their government. Pronouncements, an intentional religion in which the people were to believe that their Ruler (Kim Il Sung) was a supreme human or an ideology that morphed into a religion’. It will be demonstrated that, when they started honoring Kim as their god, no other religion was permitted.Contribution: This research offers readers an understanding of the value of humanity in the binding ideology of Juche. However, the Juche Ideology can serve as a missiological bridge towards mission goals, which require the experience of spiritual, physical, and social liberation.

Hybrid in Form, Socialist in Content: The Formal Politics of Chŏlga in the North Korean Revolutionary Opera Sea of Blood

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 419-445
Author(s):  
STEPHEN JOHNSON
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Cultural Hybridity ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Music Genres ◽  
The North ◽  
Kim Jong Il ◽  
Analytical Standards ◽  
Korean Nation

AbstractKim Jong Il considered the 1971 premiere of the opera Sea of Blood a watershed moment in opera history. He lauded its innovative use of chŏlga (‘stanzaic song’) rather than aria and recitative. By Western analytical standards, however, chŏlga is simple and predictable, so scholars have thus far glossed over its conventions and their signification. This article instead argues that chŏlga conventions exhibit cultural hybridity and that Kim leveraged such hybridity to advocate a modern, popular, and national sound for North Korea. I begin by outlining hybrid characteristics of colonial-era popular music that chŏlga inherited. I then explore Kim's engagement with such trends in his speeches on chŏlga and demonstrate that cultural hybridity was central to his understanding of sonic modernity. Finally, I analyse a scene from Sea of Blood that pits chŏlga against other music genres, leading to a symbolic victory for the form and for the Korean nation.

Climate Change and Regime Perpetuation in North Korea

Asian Survey ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 378-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Habib
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Food Insecurity ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Limited Capacity ◽  
Kim Jong Il ◽  
Climate Hazards

Climate change is a new variable that may weaken the Kim Jong-il regime by disrupting North Korea's agricultural sector, leading to greater food insecurity and erosion of the state's institutions. North Korea has limited capacity to adapt to climate hazards, which could exacerbate existing stresses and push the regime into terminal decay.

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