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In a post from last summer, we argued that the military is occupying a larger role within party and state institutions. The events of the last six months—from the satellite launch and nuclear tests, to the particularly furious reaction to UNSC Resolution 2087 and the closing of Kaesong—appear to have military fingerprints on them. At [...]
The recent round of rhetorical escalation between North Korea, South Korea and the US crested just as two political gatherings were convening: a plenum of the Workers’ Party Central Committee and the Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA), the country’s legislature. Both are top-down bodies that are used not to deliberate, but to propagate: to hand out [...]
At a conference several weeks ago at MIT, I had the chance to talk to Steve Levitsky (Department of Government at Harvard) about his current work with Lucan Way (University of Toronto) on authoritarian cohesion and durability. Levitsky and Way are the co-authors of a great book on “competitive authoritarian” regimes: intermediate regimes that are [...]
A series of meetings and statements since the successful satellite and nuclear tests suggests that a new ideological line is taking shape in North Korea. We are looking for an appropriate label. “Missiles and Nuclear Weapons First Policy” comes to mind, but it is a little inelegant. We have decided on “Songun Mark 2.0.” At [...]
We look closely at institutional developments in North Korea for signs of hope: that Kim Jong Un would shift his attention to bodies that would constrain his impulses for the grand gesture or represent a somewhat wider array of economic and social interests. Lost amidst the focus on the likely nuclear test is the ample [...]
If there is any doubt about the centrality of family politics in North Korea, the continuing rise of Jang Song Thaek—Kim Jong Il’s brother-in-law and thus Kim Jong Un’s uncle—should put them to rest. According to a typically-careful analysis by Michael Madden at North Korea Leadership Watch, Jang has apparently been appointed to the Politburo [...]
Alex Mansourov has written an extended analysis of the succession in three parts for 38North, the must-read maintained by SAIS. It is interesting both for its overall conclusions and for a number of details we missed (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). Of particular interest is Mansourov’s claim that the regime may be setting the [...]
Prior to the missile launch, we saw a spate of reporting coming out of the South Korean press hinting that the transition may not be going well. These stories may provide information—or disinformation. And the successful launch may–or may not– have changed the story line. In any case, the first anniversary of Kim Jong Il’s [...]
Now that the seven members of China’s Politburo Standing Committee have been chosen, we thought it would be interesting to compare the Chinese Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee with its North Korean counterparts, the Politburo and its Presidium, which were also appointed anew this year. We also look at the previous Politburo rosters in both [...]
Yesterday, NK News—an extremely useful website founded in 2010 by Tad Farrell—launched North Korea Leadership Tracker. The outcome of one year of work by Luke Herman and NK News interns, and co-hosted by the Korea Economic Institute, the NK Leadership Tracker is a data visualization project. It is based on a dataset of every public [...]
