A Study on the Split and Change of Values in North Korea"s Life World 2 : Social Community

Although North Korea is one of the most closed countries in the world, it has long been pursuing international cooperation with other countries in order to upgrade the quality of its film industry to international standards. Preceding studies on this topic have mainly focused on the political influences behind filmmaking in general and very few studies have exclusively dealt with North Korea’s international co-productions. In this respect, in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of the internalization strategy of North Korea’s film productions, this paper uses the global value chain as a framework for analysis. This approach helps understand the internationalization pattern of each value chain activity of film co-productions in terms of the film location and the methods for collaborating with foreign partners. By dividing the evolution of North Korea’s international co-productions into three periods since the 1980s, this paper finds that although North Korea has shown mixed results with different aspects of the film value chain, it has generally improved its internationalization over the three periods. This paper further provides strategic directions for North Korea by learning some of the successful Chinese experiences in the film sector regarding collaboration with foreign partners—to foster a win-win situation for all involved parties.

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The Japanese Factor in the Making of North Korean Socialism

European Journal of Korean Studies ◽

10.33526/ejks.20201902.225 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 225-251

Author(s):

Ernest Ming-Tak Leung

Keyword(s):

Communist Party ◽

North Korea ◽

Colonial Rule ◽

Direct Experience ◽

Colonial Era ◽

Stepping Stone ◽

The Creation ◽

Juche Ideology

This article explores a commonly ignored aspect of Japan–North Korean relations: the Japanese factor in the making of Korean socialism. Korea was indirectly influenced by the Japanese Jiyuminken Movement, in the 1910s–1920s serving as a stepping-stone for the creation of a Japanese Communist Party. Wartime mobilization policies under Japanese rule were continued and expanded beyond the colonial era. The Juche ideology built on tendencies first exhibited in the 1942 Overcoming Modernity Conference in Japan, and in the 1970s some Japanese leftists viewed Juche as a humanist Marxism. Trade between Japan and North Korea expanded from 1961 onwards, culminating in North Korea’s default in 1976, from which point on relations soured between the two countries. Yet leaders with direct experience of colonial rule governed North Korea through to the late 1990s.

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Divergent Memories of Tumen Shan-shui

European Journal of Korean Studies ◽

10.33526/ejks.20191901.229 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 229-10.33526/EJKS.20191901.229

Author(s):

Xiaoxuan Lu

Keyword(s):

Lived Experience ◽

North Korea ◽

Research Study ◽

States Of Mind ◽

Geographical Research ◽

River Region ◽

Production Techniques ◽

Landscape Research ◽

Border Areas ◽

The Creation

Focusing on the interplay between memory and place, this article examines the rationale behind the use of axonometric drawings (axons) in a geographical research study of the Tumen/Tuman River region encompassing the borders shared by China, Russia and North Korea. The concepts of “memory of place” and “place of memory” guide the structure of this project and the flow of this article. “Memory of place” emphasises the lived experience of our physical senses, and helps determine the great potential of visual methodologies in the fields of geographical and landscape research and study. Drawn up using the graphic production techniques of abstracting, foregrounding, highlighting and juxtaposing, axons avail themselves of and inform both realist and idealist states of mind. In contrast, “place of memory” references a particular type of materiality and helps us understand Tumen Shan-shui as a library of memories that reveals a profusion of contested aesthetic, cultural and political meanings. Axons serve to tell narratives revealing desires, actions and undertakings that have shaped and continue to shape the substance of the memory sites in question including infrastructure, architecture and signage. Initially adopted by the author as a medium for recording and communicating due to security restrictions imposed in the border areas in question, the creation of axons generated new insights on methods of documentation in landscape research, and the places and landscapes themselves.

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Why Has There Been No People’s Power Rebellion in North Korea?

European Journal of Korean Studies ◽

10.33526/ejks.2018181.1 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 1-34

Author(s):

Andrew Jackson

Keyword(s):

Rural Areas ◽

North Korea ◽

Large Scale ◽

Political Elite ◽

Information Control ◽

Al Jazeera ◽

The North ◽

New Information ◽

Effective System ◽

The Right

One scenario put forward by researchers, political commentators and journalists for the collapse of North Korea has been a People’s Power (or popular) rebellion. This paper analyses why no popular rebellion has occurred in the DPRK under Kim Jong Un. It challenges the assumption that popular rebellion would happen because of widespread anger caused by a greater awareness of superior economic conditions outside the DPRK. Using Jack Goldstone’s theoretical expla-nations for the outbreak of popular rebellion, and comparisons with the 1989 Romanian and 2010–11 Tunisian transitions, this paper argues that marketi-zation has led to a loosening of state ideological control and to an influx of infor-mation about conditions in the outside world. However, unlike the Tunisian transitions—in which a new information context shaped by social media, the Al-Jazeera network and an experience of protest helped create a sense of pan-Arab solidarity amongst Tunisians resisting their government—there has been no similar ideology unifying North Koreans against their regime. There is evidence of discontent in market unrest in the DPRK, although protests between 2011 and the present have mostly been in defense of the right of people to support themselves through private trade. North Koreans believe this right has been guaranteed, or at least tacitly condoned, by the Kim Jong Un government. There has not been any large-scale explosion of popular anger because the state has not attempted to crush market activities outright under Kim Jong Un. There are other reasons why no popular rebellion has occurred in the North. Unlike Tunisia, the DPRK lacks a dissident political elite capable of leading an opposition movement, and unlike Romania, the DPRK authorities have shown some flexibility in their anti-dissent strategies, taking a more tolerant approach to protests against economic issues. Reduced levels of violence during periods of unrest and an effective system of information control may have helped restrict the expansion of unrest beyond rural areas.

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Unseen Laws- A Quantitative Approach to Developments in North Korea’s Legal System

European Journal of Korean Studies ◽

10.33526/ejks.20181702.22 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 22-62

Author(s):

Martin Weiser

Keyword(s):

North Korea ◽

Legal Rules ◽

The North ◽

Legal Texts ◽

Policy Fields ◽

Policy Agendas ◽

Broad Policy ◽

Sophisticated Analysis ◽

Detailed Picture ◽

Law Making

The position of law in North Korean politics and society has been a long concern of scholars as well as politicians and activists. Some argue it would be more important to understand the extra-legal rules that run North Korea like the Ten Principles on the leadership cult as they supersede any formal laws or the constitution.1 But the actual legal developments in North Korea, which eventually also mediate those leading principles and might even limit their reach, has so far been insufficiently explored. It is easy to point to North Korean secrecy as a main reason for this lacuna. But the numerous available materials and references on North Korean legislation available today have, however, not been fully explored yet, which has severely impeded progress in the field. Even publications officially released by North Korea to foreigners offer surprisingly detailed information on legal changes and the evolution of the law-making institutions. This larger picture of legal developments already draws a more detailed picture of the institutional developments in North Korean law and the broad policy fields that had been regulated from early on in contrast to the often-assumed absence of legislation in important fields like copyright, civil law or investment. It also shows that different to a monolithic system, various law-making institutions exist and fulfil discernably different legal responsibilities. Next to this limitation in content, scholars in the field currently also have not used all approaches legal developments in the North Korea could be analysed and interpreted with. Going beyond the reading of legal texts or speculating about known titles of still unavailable legislation, quantitative approaches can be applied ranging from the simple counting of laws to more sophisticated analysis of legislative numbering often provided with legislation. Understanding the various institutions as flexible in their roles and hence adoptable to shifts in leadership and policy agendas can also provide a more realistic picture of legal practices in North Korea.

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