Statecraft
A Pragmatic Approach to Collapsing the Regime: A Critique
In a June 16 op-ed in the New York Times, Sue Mi Terry promoted expediting the end of the North Korean regime. The piece energized analyst Michael Bassett to respond.
Smile: You’re on North Korean TV
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.
“Tag X” and the German Leg of the Park-Kim Summit Question
Leveraging her strong public image overseas, President Park Geun-hye is currently in Europe. She gave a well-received address to the Nuclear Security Summit in the Netherlands, and then moved on to Germany. In the midst of a packed German agenda, she gave this interview to journalist Philipp Abresch.
Kimism’s Great Christmas Power Grab
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.
Framing Epistemic Communities in North Korea: From Fungus to Botanical Gardens
North Korean developmental praxis relies on epistemic communities and research institutions to achieve its goals. The country’s institutions are not only meta-devices for rolling out in reportage to add a veneer of intellectual legitimacy to centralized dictat, as Robert Winstanley-Chesters reveals in the case of Pyongyang Botanical Gardens.
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