CIAO DATE: 03/2012
A publication of:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
The motivations of North Korea’s leaders and people have long been a mystery, frustrating policymakers who must decide whether to pursue a relationship with the government or attempt to isolate the rogue state, but new literature reveals that the North Korean people and their government operate more normally than most people think. This literature also suggests that policies designed to minimize North Korea’s military threat may hurt efforts to improve the lives of its citizens and vice versa. Given this difficulty and the recent regime change, efforts to understand North Korea before making and implementing policy decisions are more important than ever.
A wave of recent scholarship, built on rich empirical research, provides new perspectives on enduring questions about North Korea. Three books, in particular—Patrick McEachern's Inside the Red Box, Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland's Famine in North Korea, and Suk-Young Kim's Illusive Utopia—present a comprehensive and panoramic vision of North Korea today. This essay reviews these books and makes two overarching arguments. First, North Korea is more “normal” than is often thought, and its domestic politics, economy, and society function in ways familiar to other countries around the world. When viewed from the inside out, North Korea's institutions, economic life, and its people act in ways that are not only similar to those of others around the world, but that differ only in their level of intensity. Second, North Korea's continuing nuclear and military challenge is only one aspect of its overall relations with the world, and policies designed to minimize its threatening military behavior may work at cross-purposes with policies designed to improve its economy and the lives of its people. The complexities that arise in dealing with North Korea create a number of contradictory policy choices, and making progress on one issue has often meant overlooking another, or even allowing it to become worse.