Author Archive

Svoliking in the High Grass: New Approaches to Understanding Authoritarian Regimes

By | September 17, 2014

Steven Denney reviews a few key works on “the politics of authoritarianism,” providing researchers with multiple comparative frameworks for understanding North Korea as authoritarian regime.

National Identity and Historical Legacy: Ahn Jung-geun in the Grand Narrative

By and | June 06, 2014

Take the slow train to Harbin and you’ll arrive right at the locus of fractious Northeast Asian history: the spot where Korean nationalist Ahn Jung-geun killed the first Resident-General of Korea Ito Hirobumi in 1909. With support from an Academy of Korean Studies grant, Steven Denney and Christopher Green try to get behind the national narrative(s).

World Values Survey Data and the Resilience of Materialist Values in South Korea

By | May 02, 2014

Most of the advanced industrial nations of the world have undergone a post-material transition, as the latest wave of World Values Survey (WVS) data shows. However, materialist values have greater resistance in South Korea. Why? Steven Denney sifts through the data and the theory that underpins it.

Bullet Trains and Wood-Burning Trucks

By and | May 01, 2014

In an effort to cut down travel time and spur economic growth, China is lacing high-speed rail throughout its northeastern provinces. Lessons abound for North Korea, as this essay from eastern Jilin indicates.

Nationalism in an Era of Strength and Prosperity: Politics and People in Post-Developmental South Korea

By | January 16, 2014

In the fall of last year, South Korea sent tanks, soldiers, and missiles down the streets of central Seoul in the largest military parade seen there in almost a decade. Steven Denney and Karl Friedhoff, writing for CSIS’s PacNet Newsletter, looked for broader societal changes beyond the pomp of the parade.