Gyun Yeol Park, Professor at Gyeongsang National University, highlights that North Korea's one-party dictatorship centered around its supreme leader suppresses political participation and human rights and hinders North Korea from overcoming the hardships of low economic growth, inefficiency, and recessions. Considering that Seoul and Pyongyang shou...

Adrian Buzo, a former professor at Macquarie University in Sydney, suggests that Kimism, or “the political philosophy of the former North Korean leader Kim Il Sung,” was shaped by cultist Japanese militarism and state-centralized Soviet Stalinism. Considering recent geopolitical trends, the failure of maximum pressure on Kim Jong-un’s regime,...

Heung Seog Lee, Professor at Kookmin University and Secretary-General at Global Defense Research Forum claims that the institutionalization of the Suryong’s rule and Party-Government-Military Complex in accordance with the revolutionary tradition has made the North Korean regime's hereditary succession possible. Until now, North Korea has not est...

Kipoom Jeong, M.A. Candidate at Seoul National University, highlights the importance of developing South Korea’s stance to ameliorate the human rights condition in North Korea based on the understanding of how other states react to it. She compares the two different approaches of the United States and European nations toward North Korean human ri...

Minju Kwon, Assistant Professor at Chapman University, analyzes the records of the Security Council, keynote speeches at the UN General Assembly, and official remarks of state representatives and foreign ministers to properly assess the competition for legitimacy taking place between Northeast Asian countries in the United Nations. Dr. Kwon demonst...

Taekyoon Kim, Professor of International Development at the Graduate School of International Studies and an Associate Dean for Public Affairs & Communication at Seoul National University, highlights the importance of approaching humanitarian aid and development cooperation from a dual-dilemma perspective. He provides an overview of an existing dile...

In this Research Review, Gyubin Choi, Research Fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, analyzes the implications of North Korea’s implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which was reported through its 2021 Voluntary National Review. Dr. Choi finds that, though Pyongyang has committed to all 17 SDGs, it did so s...

In this Research Review, Dr. Hyesuk Kang and Dr. Kyungmo Ahn examine how North Korean ideologies have changed under the Kim Jong-un regime and outline the policy implications of this evolution. They find that the “Our State First” and “People First” principles have come to replace Songun (military first) thought as the pillars of N...

In this Special Report, Changyong Choi, Associate Professor at the Seoul National University Graduate School of Public Administration, calls for South Korea to engage in trilateral cooperation with international financial institutions to offer capacity-building programs and knowledge-sharing projects to North Korea, thereby providing the North with...

In this Research Review, Ho-ryung Lee, Senior Research Fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, states that South Korea faces complex and diverse challenges in establishing “nuclear-free peace on the Korean Peninsula.” In particular, the author notes that two Koreas lack a consensus on what constitutes a peace regime or treaty, as th...