Attitudinal Legacies of Dictatorship: A Survey of North Korean Defectors

• In Event: Redistribution under Authoritarian Rule and Authoritarian Legacies (Virtual Session)

Abstract

This paper examines the long-term effect of a highly repressive autocratic regime on its citizens' political attitudes and behaviors. We begin with the assumption that autocratic regimes’ efforts to manipulate their citizens’ perceptions and ideas can either lead to internalization of the regimes’ ideological doctrine or it may lead to an outright rejection of doctrine (or disengagement of citizens from the political process). Focusing on North Korean defectors, we analyze the long-term effects of the authoritarian regime on its citizens’ political attitudes and behaviors after the regime's control disappears. In particular, we are interested in how pre-migratory experiences affect attitudes about power and participation, especially attitudes about the strength of the executive, and whether citizens are largely subjects or participants in terms of political culture. We collect responses to a survey of approximately 500 North Korean defectors living in South Korea in order to assess the lasting impact of socialization in North Korea on defectors’ attitudes about political participation and political authority, as well as their institutional trust.
We argue that the key mechanism underlying authoritarian attitudinal legacies is driven by individual-level and group-level factors that defectors experienced, pre-migration. Thus, this paper examines the role of various group-level socialization factors, such as school, political party, workplace, union, as well as individual-level socialization factors, such as family, duration of residence, peers, and profession. For example, the political message of dictatorship should be more influential and therefore remains a long-lasting attitudinal impact among individuals and groups who benefits from the regime (i.e., elite group), whereas the effect should be weaker or even reversed among marginalized or excluded groups (i.e., non-elite group).
The group of North Korean defectors provides the best example to test our theory for several reasons. First, North Korea is an ideal case to measure the long-term impact of autocracy because it is a highly repressive dictatorship that has developed strong social control for more than 70 years. Second, in terms of research availability, more than 30,000 North Korean defectors currently reside in South Korea, so it is possible to access the group of North Korean defectors. Third, we can control other confounding factors (i.e., language, culture, and customs) that can affect the outcome of the research when studying one ethnic group, despite political and economic differences between South and North Korea.
The results of this research contribute to the literature in several ways. First, it expands the scope of existing literature mainly focused on post-communist countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union by analyzing a highly personalized authoritarian regime, North Korea. Second, existing survey studies on North Korean defectors have not explained variations of political attitudes and behaviors among them and how the socialization process in North Korea is connected to the variations. This research fills this gap. Third, the result of this research provides implications for producing detailed policies so that immigrants from repressive autocratic regimes can settle smoothly in democratic societies by analyzing their perceptions and thoughts.

Authors

• Taekbin Kim, Seoul National University

• John Ishiyama, University of North Texas