Nuclear Populism: Why North Korea will not Forgo its Nuclear Power

• In Event: Poster Session: International Security I

Abstract

What is the “populism”? What factors cause the populism, and who use this ideology and why? Though many of scholars have been approached this concept so far, the definition of populism is still vague and nebulous, and the people often confine the notion narrowly. Based on the existing definitions of the populism, it can be widely defined as the political ideology that emerges from the popular resentment toward the orthodox social order. Then, what is the “the people” who express resentment? Who is the elite? Most approaches tend to pretermit the fact that the populism differs in how the people define, and it depends on what people and elite respectively define.

In this article, I would like to entangle the type of populism, which occurs in the authoritarian government calling for the securitization by focusing on the case of North Korea. Conventionally, many pundits have been argued that North Korea’s political philosophy is solely based on the dictatorship which disregards the general people who live in the country and abuse basic human rights. However, then how could they manage their society for so long? If the society is unstable enough, the people might already break out in rebellion, and the society get changed. The most profitable gain from the nuke is not in the international bargaining power but in the public support that the leadership acquires entrenched with their peculiar nationalism. In this regard, the article would like to explore the embedded philosophy of populism in the system of North Korea mainly utilizing the nuke.

As I pointed out above, despite the significance of the study and its applicability, the populism has not been researched comprehensively yet. Since many pundits consider the concept based on the premise of representative democracy, there has been a lack of concerns on the applications for the various social system. Also, many studies on the North Korean affairs are mostly on the leadership from the top, and not on the dynamic relationship between North Korean people and the administration.

The nuke easily draws the public support from North Korean people and helps to rationalize their status over other countries as a symbol. The communist party - including a dictator, Kim Jong-un - exploits this mechanism and sets another bigger subject, Western society, as an “elite.” Thus, from the logic, nuclear power is an indispensable national treasure that they must possess. As Jacques Hymans (2006) aptly noted, nuclear proliferation is highly possible to occur when the one stipulates the antagonistic relationship between us and others, which is the characteristics of nationalism. The nuclear power has long been functioned as a foundation of the hostile relationship between NK and Western society, and it strengthens the solidarity within the idea of North Korean people.

In these situations, the rise of right-wing populism provokes the depute of nuclear armament even more. South Korean politicians mostly from right party, repeatedly urged to build up the nuclear power against North Korea since 2017. It got well-supported by people who need strong nations since it enables to reach self - realization. In this deluged right-wing populism, North Korea will cling to maintain its nuclear power and use it as a rebound weapon according to the deterrence theory, fundamentally the penal populism.

Therefore, in this article, I will offer the explanation about the populists’ argument which maladapts weapons of mass destruction such as a nuclear power. Also, I would like to analyze it based on the North Korea’s case that the Supreme Leader and its party members exploit the people’s needs to be recognized as a strong nation supplementing by nuclear power. Existing studies regarding the populism have not perceived North Korea’s leaders and the public as populism lens due to the negative cognitions of their human rights abuse. However, this unorthodox approaches on the North Korean society nobly contribute to understanding how they portray the nuke as their national anthem and the real reasons why they will never wholly forgo the power of nuclear. As a methodology of the article, I would like to analyze the rhetoric of Kim Jong-Un and formulate to design the framework of populism by utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methodology.

Author

• Yujin Julia Jung, University of Missouri