Examines how and why nations have persuaded North Korea to cooperate on topics such as nuclear policy.

South Korea-related refereed articles in Korea Yearbook 2008 focus on the domestic political scene, relations with Japan, policy towards the North, higher education reform, and new Korean cinema. Additional articles deal with the recovery of the remains of US soldiers killed in the Korean War, economic reform in North Korea, and inter-Korean economic cooperation. For Korea Yearbook 2009 the editors have announced a graduate student prize of US 750,-. Please see the readership section for more details.

The global consensus in academic, specialist and public realms is that North Korea is a problem: its nuclear ambitions pose a threat to international security, its levels of poverty indicate a humanitarian crisis and its political repression signals a failed state. This book examines the cultural dimensions of the international problem of North Korea through contemporary South Korean and Western popular imagination’s engagement with North Korea. Building on works by feminist-postcolonial thinkers, in particular Trinh Minh-ha, Rey Chow and Gayatri Spivak, it examines novels, films, photography and memoirs for how they engage with issues of security, human rights, humanitarianism and political agency from an intercultural perspective. By doing so the author challenges the key assumptions that underpin the prevailing realist and liberal approaches to North Korea. This research attends not only to alternative framings, narratives and images of North Korea but also to alternative modes of knowing, loving and responding and will be of interest to students of critical international relations, Korean studies, cultural studies and Asian studies.

North Korea features highly on the agenda of the main actors in East Asia and around the globe, and many large foreign policy initiatives have been undertaken since the structural constraints of the Cold War started to loosen in the early 1990s. The centrality of North Korea has been particularly emphasized by the country's suspected development of nuclear weapons which is regarded as one of the largest de-stabilising factors in the Asia-Pacific region. This comprehensive book analyzes the formation of the North Korea policy in the context of great power relations in East Asia, specifically focusing on Japan's policy formation and 'the Japan factor' in the North Korea policies of other concerned great powers, namely the US, China, Russia, South Korea and the EU. By adopting an empirical focus on the international interaction over North Korea, this book brings together issues that are highly relevant to contemporary Japanese foreign policy; clarifies what is happening in the region right now and plots what policy options are available for the future. Policy-oriented and based on careful empirical analysis, North Korea Policy will appeal to both policy makers and scholars of Asian foreign policy.

North Korea’s nuclear weapons program has provoked much apprehension in the international community in recent years. The Six Party Talks were convened in 2003 to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. They brought together the US, China, Russia, Japan as well as North and South Korea in the effort to negotiate a multilateral resolution of North Korea’s nuclear program but the parties had widely different views and approaches. This book will examine the Six Party Talks as a study in multilateral negotiation highlighting the expectations vested in them and their inability to develop a common approach to the issue. It holds out some important lessons for multilateral negotiation, diplomacy and dealing with North Korea.

The book traces the past decade of dynamic interactions among the concerned states involved in the Six-Party Talks on North Korean nuclear programs. Unlike existing studies which usually dissect incidents of the talks, the book provides a comprehensive systemic analysis of the Six-Party Talks process from A to Z. These new insights into the nuclear drama in the Northeast Asian region will be of value to scholars, policy makers, and analysts.

North Korea's institutional politics defy traditional political models, making the country's actions seem surprising or confusing when, in fact, they often conform to the regime's own logic. Drawing on recent materials, such as North Korean speeches, commentaries, and articles, Patrick McEachern, a specialist on North Korean affairs, reveals how the state's political institutions debate policy and inform and execute strategic-level decisions. Many scholars dismiss Kim Jong-Il's regime as a "one-man dictatorship," calling him the "last totalitarian leader," but McEachern identifies three major institutions that help maintain regime continuity: the cabinet, the military, and the party. These groups hold different institutional policy platforms and debate high-level policy options both before and after Kim and his senior leadership make their final call. This method of rule may challenge expectations, but North Korea does not follow a classically totalitarian, personalistic, or corporatist model. Rather than being monolithic, McEachern argues, the regime, emerging from the crises of the 1990s, rules differently today than it did under Kim's father, Kim Il Sung. The son is less powerful and pits institutions against one another in a strategy of divide and rule. His leadership is fundamentally different: it is "post-totalitarian." Authority may be centralized, but power remains diffuse. McEachern maps this process in great detail, supplying vital perspective on North Korea's reactive policy choices, which continue to bewilder the West.

We are told, time and again, that North Koreans are loyal to their leader, that they would do anything, even die for him, and that they are fiercely proud and nationalistic. But to an equal extent, we are told that they are oppressed, suffering, and ready to rise against the evil dictator. What do we know beyond or between these opposing assumptions? We are not well equipped with the conceptual tools that could lead us beyond the current securitization of our discourses on North Korea, while undercurrents of regarding North Koreans as less human continue in these discourses. This volume attempts to multiply the angles from which we can look at North Korea by reassessing the international environment in which it is placed, the process of production of its culture, and the historical paths it has followed. Due to the new approach the volume takes, reading these pages will be an eye-opening experience not only for experts, but also for lay readers and anyone interested in peace keeping in Korea, Northeast Asia, and beyond.