The Korean Odyssey

  *How was North Korea able to create a powerful system of one-person rule unlike anywhere else in the modern world?   @iStock Il Young Jeong Research Professor_Institute of Social Sciences_Sogang University Do we really understand North Korea as it is? Often the information we can acquire about the country is contradictory, seeming to describe vastly different North Koreas. Perhaps we are all peering through a hazy looking glass and seeing our own biases and expectations reflected in our interpretations. The question I would like to put forward is tied to the fundamental question driving many people’s curiosity about North Korea: “How was North Korea able to create a powerful system of one-person rule unlike anywhere else in the modern world?” What has allowed this system to exercise stable control of a country that has been in a constant state of crisis since the end of the Korean War?   The Historical Context for North Korea’s System of One Person Rule In the early t...

  * North Korea's food production was widely expected to decline significantly in 2022 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and flood damage.  @iStock Il Young Jeong Research Professor_Institute of Social Sciences_Sogang University Since the beginning of this year, there has been no short supply of reports about starvation due to food shortages in North Korea. While the starvation is the result of declines in agricultural production, the matter has become a hot topic as “the worst food shortages since the Arduous March (mass famine of the 90s).” The closed-off nature of information about North Korea has created a news environment that encourages provocative stories and relies heavily on undisclosed sources. This informational environment has only continued to snowball without redress. There are also cases in which "claims" made without concrete evidence are picked up by foreign outlets, gain credibility by association, and are brought back into Korea and reported as ...