Is the Hermit Kingdom a Kingdom At All? North Korea’s Regime Typology

• In Event: Issues in International and Comparative Politics

Abstract

It is common within popular discourse to assert that the regime in Pyongyang operates solely at the behest of Kim Jong Un, or even that it is a monarchy, given that every paramount leader has always been a member of the same family. However, this approach is reductive at best and fails to capture the true nature of North Korea's political mechanisms. North Korea fundamentally lacks the proper royal and aristocratic institutions that characterize a monarchy, a unique authoritarian regime type. It is essential to distinguish accurately between different types of regimes to gain a comprehensive understanding of them. Instead, I argue that North Korea's political system is fundamentally akin to the party-state model seen in the People's Republic of China and former Council for Mutual Economic Assistance countries. My paper fits within the discourse around the degree to which authoritarian regimes have institutionalized practices that enable long-term and multigenerational governance (Schedler, 2009 & Zeng, 2014). In particular, my research strives to be a development of Ellen Comisso and Laura D'Andrea Tyson's work (Power, Purpose, and Collective Choice, 1986) on understanding the governance of one-party states.

Author

• Timothy Jay Sweeney, St. Joseph's University