North Korea Demystified [Hardcover]

With a paucity of authoritative firsthand information on North Korea available to the citizens of the world's democracies, discourse on the subject is impeded, and the democratic deficit regarding national policies towards the DPRK is necessarily broadened. Indeed, at no other time has the need for this information been more acute. The six-party talks regarding the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula made plain the DPRK's ambition (and ability) to play a larger role in world affairs, and its formal nuclear tests have exacerbated the tension and urgency of the situation. The death of Kim Jong Il and succession of his son Kim Jong Un, and recent reopening of bilateral discussions with the United States further increase the necessity of a nuanced understanding of contemporary society within the DPRK. If the world is to effectively deal with the reality of North Korea, reliable information is critical. This book, recommended by Alternative Nobel Prize winner Johan Galuting, is a response to this problem. It takes as its point of departure the notion that all leaders and governments, no matter how odd or dysfunctional their behavior may seem, act in a fundamentally rational matter-but that this rationality must be put into context in order to be properly understood. That is, their rationality is not independent of their historical experience, their culture, their value structure, or their institutional constraints, and all of these things must be considered in order to discover the rationality behind the decision making that appears on its surface to be so 'irrational' and/or 'dangerous.' Only by understanding this can these policy responses be rendered intelligible, perhaps even predictable. In this respect, the book speaks to broader and more timeless themes of theoretical import. As a test case, the book seeks to demystify the intelligence black hole that is North Korea. In so doing, it supplies the reader with much needed factual information garnered through fil£!