Suchergebnisse

Part I. Jettisoning caricatures: understanding history -- Beyond the cliches -- National identity -- Part II. The rise and fall of Kim Il Sungism -- Colonialism occupation and the rise of Kim Il Sung -- War-fighting as state-building -- "Socialism in our own style" -- Sisyphus as economic model -- Social stratification in the workers' state -- Famine and the end of Kim Il Sungism -- Part III. Marketisation and military rule -- Marketisation from below -- Military rule from above -- The marketisation of well-being -- The marketisation of the social structure -- Going nuclear -- Strategic paralysis -- North Koreans as agents of change

In this historically grounded, richly empirical study of social and economic transformation in North Korea, Hazel Smith evaluates the 'marketization from below' that followed the devastating famine of the early 1990s, estimated to be the cause of nearly one million fatalities. Smith shows how the end of the Cold War in Europe and the famine brought radical social change to all of North Korean society. This major new study analyses how marketization transformed the interests, expectations and values of the entire society, including Party members, the military, women and men, the young and the elderly. Smith shows how the daily life of North Koreans has become alienated from the daily pronouncements of the North Korean government. Challenging stereotypes of twenty-five million North Koreans as mere bystanders in history, Smith argues that North Koreans are 'neither victims nor villains' but active agents of their own destiny

Intro -- Contents -- Tables and figures -- Acknowledgements -- Foreword -- Contributors -- Abbreviations -- 1 Reconstituting Korean security dilemmas -- 2 Creating Korean insecurity: The US role -- 3 Living with ambiguity: North Korea's strategic weapons programmes -- 4 Economic security in the DPRK -- 5 Food security: The case for multisectoral and multilateral cooperation -- 6 The preconditions for Korean security: US policy and the legacy of 1945 -- 7 The DPRK economic crisis and the ROK security dilemma -- 8 Korean security dilemmas: Chinese policies -- 9 Japan and North Korea - The quest for normalcy -- 10 Korean security dilemmas: A Russian perspective -- 11 Korean security dilemmas: European Union policies -- 12 Korean security dilemmas: ASEAN policies and perspective -- 13 Korean security: A policy primer -- Bibliography -- Index.

If the legal foundation and political consensus underpinning United Nations resolutions suggests that North Korea's denuclearization can be understood as a just cause, were the means used by the United Nations also just? This essay draws on jus in bello analogies to analyze UN sanctions via standard ethical criteria of effectiveness, necessity and proportionality. It shows that UN sanctions did not fulfill the effectiveness criterion as they were never likely to result in the denuclearization of North Korea. The necessity condition was strained as the alternative instrument of diplomacy was not utilized in a sustained manner. Expanded sanctions from 2016 did not distinguish between the military and civilian economies. Stringent energy sanctions introduced in 2017 contributed significantly to a precipitous fall in agricultural production in 2018 such that the country could no longer feed about a third of the 25 million population. Post-2016 UN sanctions did not meet the proportionality criterion as they jeopardized the food security of millions of innocents. The DPRK government has primary responsibility for the welfare of its citizens but this assumption does not abrogate the responsibilities of others. Broad UN sanctions on the DPRK are neither effective nor proportionate and are, therefore, unethical. (Crit Asian Stud/GIGA)

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Commission of Inquiry, established in 2013 to investigate human rights violations in North Korea, identified food rights violations, among other abuses, as potentially constituting crimes against humanity. A contradiction arises in that UNHRC claims of food rights violations in the DPRK are not congruent with the statistical indicators emanating from the UN humanitarian and development agencies that have worked in the DPRK since the mid 1990s and that have engaged in and published substantial research on food, nutrition, and health. The author of this article contends that North Korea has an oppressive government and argues that the lack of transparency makes the many things that are unknown about North Korea, especially its opaque penal system, of legitimate ethical and political concern. Reasonably good data on issues pertaining to social and economic rights do exist, however, as this article shows. The inconsistency between the received wisdom on food and nutrition is of concern because the potential consequences of a state being judged as committing crimes against humanity include military intervention and consequent threats to life for millions. This article reconsiders how and why the received wisdom becomes unchallenged and unchallengeable in scholarly, policy, and media discourse. Inconsistency and misrepresentation is not primarily due to conscious bias but much more because of the unconscious adoption of a securitized perspective through which knowledge about North Korea is filtered. The article argues for reframing North Korean human rights issues on the basis that North Korean society is neither unique nor unknowable. (Crit Asian Stud/GIGA)