Groove Columns

Smile: You’re on North Korean TV

By | June 26, 2014

North Korean television occasionally features political “talk shows.” This essay looks at one example, and analyses how the North Korean state manages to modulate its propaganda message.

Kimism’s Great Christmas Power Grab

By | February 07, 2014

When the Kim regime arrested, tried and swiftly executed Jang Sung-taek in December 2013, it was implementing the ancient maxim about the relative power of regents and monarchs, and following the ruthless logic of autocracy everywhere. Machiavelli would not have been in the least bit surprised by the death, as Christopher Green investigates in another of his columns for Groove Korea.

Never on the Verge of War: The Birth of the Young Man Doctrine

By | January 18, 2014

“North Korea is not one man, and Kim Jong-un, while one man, is not North Korea,” argues Christopher Green in a monthly column for Groove Korea, a Seoul-based magazine aimed at the country’s burgeoning community of English-speaking expats.