The Logic of the North Korean Dictatorship

In this paper I use my way of thinking about dictatorship, developed in my 1998 book, The Political Economy of Dictatorship, and elsewhere, to “model” the North Korean regime. Initially, under the Great Leader Kim Il Sung it was a simple totalitarian regime but the shocks of the 1990’s –the fall of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe, the capitalist turn of China, the economic takeoff of South Korea and the succession crisis caused by Kim Il Sung’s death threatened the stability of that regime. Kim Jong Il shored up the regime by marrying it to the military. The instabilities and paradox associated with military rule were resolved through Kim Jong Il’s “military first politics” that is, to exaggerate only a little, by militarizing the entire society. This is the distinctive feature of the regime. I analyze the stability of that regime, and ask whether engagement or isolation is the best way for the rest of the world to deal with North Korea. I come down on the side of engagement, but am gloomy about the likely success of either policy in getting the regime to liberalize politically or economically.