Challenges of Post-Revolutionary Reintegration: North Korea and the Global Order

• In Event: International Politics and the Role of Ideology in Revolutions

Abstract

Every few years world’s attention would invariably be drawn to the Korean peninsula where a crisis involving North Korea would flare up, leading to speculations of an imminent war and massive destruction. Why have tensions between North Korea and the West, especially the US, been so longstanding and persistent? This paper explains North Korea’s relationship with the outside world through the theoretical framework of revolutions. Like many other revolutionary states, North Korea’s relationship with the global order has alternated between self-isolation and assertive phases. Unlike China, Vietnam and Laos, fellow communist revolutionary states in Asia that have been reintegrated into the global order for decades, North Korea has resisted such moves. This paper seeks to explain North Korea’s patterns of relationship with the global order from its birth in 1945 by focusing on the role of ideology. In particular, we focus on how North Korean leaders developed a specific ideology by mixing communist doctrine and practices with local traditions. This ideology distinguished the country from its fellow Asian communist states and has generated much more tension with the West as a result.

Author

• Tuong Vu, University of Oregon