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Writing from Seoul, there is no topic—except perhaps the Winter Olympics—that is so much on everyone’s mind as how to model political change in the DPRK. The National Bureau of Asian Research’s Andrew Marble asked Daniel Pinkston of the International Crisis Group and me to offer our reflections, motivated in part by developments in the Middle East. The interview in Asia Policy is available here for a limited time.
Among the themes we address: the meaning of recent institutional changes and appointments; the role of the military in the political system; the effects of marketization on the possibility of pressures from below; and the implications of political change for stability on the peninsula.
Since the interview was done, somewhat more evidence has leaked out about resistance to the generational transfer of power both at home (among the older generation, interestingly) and abroad (particularly in China). Nonetheless, we reach three core conclusions. First, institutions are being shaped to facilitate the succession, both in the “sudden death” scenario and in the case of a more prolonged transfer of authority. Second, the incentives to rally to KJU on the part of key stakeholders are likely to outweigh both his defects and the costs of an overt challenge. Third, although marketization is creating a potential space outside the reach of the state, it that development is not far enough along to provide the platform for a challenge to the regime from below. Despite continuing talk of “collapse”—a term that never seems to be very clearly defined--underestimating the resilience of the regime still seems a mistake.
The NBR also deserves a plug; in addition to the new issue of Asia Policy, they maintain a rich website and are publishing a lot of good commentary on developments across the region. Pinkston's authoritative commentary for the International Crisis Group can be found at their North Korea page.
