Factors for NK's Regime Maintenance

Why Has North Korea

Not Failed Yet? Ӏ                                                                                     

                                                                

                                                                      Shinae Hong(shinae810@yahoo.com)

 

June 27, 2009- Against all odds, and contrary to popular predictions of its regime’s imminent fall, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea), the World’s last Stalinist nation, has indeed proved its resilience. Remarkably, North Korea has done so while  surviving what scholars have referred to as two unrecoverable political crises — the general collapse of its economy and especially a great famine in the 1990s.[1] More recently, Kim Jong-Il’s health problem has sparked frenzied speculation over potential political instability. To be sure, someday Kim will die and his demise could lead to an internal succession crisis.  However, this event would also affect regional actors’ contingency plans for dealing with a North Korean collapse and plans for unification of the two Koreas.

 

 

Although many scholars in recent years have made attempts to explain the complexities of the state failure phenomenon, it has remained difficult to comprehend why some states fail while others survive. Moreover, predictions of  a state failure within closed systems such as North Korea are even more complex. To assess, or even anticipate, state failure,  multiple layers of in-depth analyses of historical trends, socio-political context, and geopolitical factors as well as other indicators are needed.  Understanding the factors that have sustained the regime is critical to explaining the persistence of the regime.

 

 

I argue that three disparate factors are fundamental to the regime’s power: 1) Totalitarian political system of the stateand the political ideology of juch’e  that governs the constituency; 2) lack of available economic resources to mobilize the political opposition; and 3)  foreign aid assistance influenced by perceived transnational security threats.  These factors have not only permitted the regime to endure multiple and serious domestic challenges, but they have also insulated the regime from potential domestic political opposition. The regime could conceivably maintain its social and political control indefinitely provided that Kim Jong-Il is able to continue manipulating these tools.

              

 

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[1] See Marcus Noland, “North Korea After Kim Jong-il,” no. 71, Washington, D.C.:Institute for International Economics, 2004, p. 12-15; Kongdan Oh and Ralph Hassig, “North Korea Between Collapseand Reform,” Asian Survey, Vol. 39, No. 2 (March/April 1999).