Hard Target

Because authoritarian regimes like North Korea can impose the costs of sanctions on their citizens, they constitute “hard targets.” Yet such regimes may also be immune—and even hostile—to economic inducements if those inducements imply reform and opening. Can economic carrots and sticks by used effectively with respect to such systems? This book draws on an array of evidence—trade data, surveys of Chinese and South Korea firms doing business in North Korea, and an analysis of the country’s political structure—to capture the effects of sanctions and inducements. The book also provides a detailed reconstruction of the role of economic incentives in the bargaining over North Korea’s nuclear program. While it highlights the difficulties sanctions have faced, it also shows the reluctance of the leadership to weaken its grip on foreign economic activity, suggesting that inducements may have limited effect as well. The case is made through a detailed reconstruction of negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear program. Discussing parallels to Iran, the book urges policy makers to think in terms of gradual strategies—including informational ones—that may have effects only over the long run.