An assessment of the North Korean system's durability

책 소개

Since the UN Security Council adopted the resolution to impose sanctions against North Korea last October 15 in response to North Korea’s nuclear test on last October 9, the question of the possibility of a collapse of the North Korean regime has been raised with increasing frequency. Some specialists judged the changes such as the relaxation of internal controls, the severe food crisis, and the greater number of refugees escaping from North Korea as symptoms of a possible collapse of the North Korean system and have attempted to estimate the conditions and timing of the collapse. Other specialists argue that they cannot judge the above conditions to be symptoms of imminent collapse considering the traits of the Kim Jong Il regime. While such directly opposing opinions are suggested, the present study argues that the scientific analysis of this issue must be settled without delay to assess Kim Jong Il regime generally and objectively. An organization's crisis level and durability can be analyzed by reference to three factors; the power elite, the regime, and the system or state. This study focuses on the aspect of the ‘regime.’ This survey was based on the survey organized for the research project The Assessment on the Crisis Level and the Prospect of Durability of North Korean Socialist System jointly written by Sung Chull Kim, Young Tai Jeung, Seung Yul Oh, Hun Kyung Lee, and Ki Dong Lee of the Research Institute of National Unification (RINU) in 1996. The study chose 15 indicators in 5 fields and broke them down into 36 measurement items to assess the authorities' crisis level. The changes of Kim Jong Il authorities' crisis level over the last 10 years (1996-2005) are studied, and a forecast of Kim Jong Il regime's durability is made, based on the results of this study. The main methods used to undertake the study are interviews and surveys. The interviews and surveys were not applicable to some of the indicators and items, and so for these, related statistical data was used. First, this survey was based on the survey organized for the research project The Assessment on the Crisis Level and the Prospect of Durability of North Korean Socialist System jointly written by Sung Chull Kim, Young Tai Jeung, Seung Yul Oh, Hun Kyung Lee, and Ki Dong Lee of the Research Institute of National Unification (RINU) in 1996. In the process of making the survey, we examined the survey's validity by performing a pilot study with two refugees. The survey was performed using 314 North Korean refugees undertaking educational courses at Hanawon (a settlement support facility for refugees) on August 1, and 3, 2006. The respondents' social and economic backgrounds are shown on . There are a few points to note about the survey. First, the survey was performed using 314 people, but each question has a different number of respondents because extremely unreliable answers were excluded. Second, the answers might contain elements of prejudice and misunderstanding because the respondents are refugees from North Korea. Third, the views expressed cannot be representative because the numbers by each variable such as residence, sex, etc. are out of balance. For instance, females, people from Haamkyung-bukdo, non-members of the Korea Workers’Party, high-school graduates and laborers are all over-represented. These facts represent one major limitation of this study and they mean that it is unreasonable to apply the contents of responses to the whole of North Korean society as it is. Each answer’s scale of the survey is from 1 to 4. These scores have the following meanings. ‘1’ means the North Korean system is very stable and is not in any danger. ‘2’ means that the system is by and large stable and is not in any danger. ‘3’ means the system is in danger but this danger is not serious. ‘4’ indicates that the system is in a very dangerous position. To make these changes clear, the changes by scale over the last 10 years (1996-2005) for each question are gi…

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