The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary North Korea presents a comprehensive picture of contemporary North Korea, placed in historical context and set against the overlapping fields of politics, economy, culture, society and foreign relations. Spanning a period of significant transition for North Korea, this volume provides accurate analysis and applications of both historical and institutional perspectives.
The volume’s nineteen chapters are representative of the growth in North Korean studies that has occurred since the 1990s, in parallel with the growing maturity of the field in South Korea, as well as with far greater levels of access to North Korean sources.. The volume is divided into five sections, each reflecting an emergent area of debate and research:
- The Political Perspective
- The North Korean Economy
- Foreign Relations
- Society
- Culture
This is the first anthology of North Korean studies to demonstrate a clear understanding of North Korea as North Korea, as opposed to a dimly perceived and threatening rogue state. It features contributors both Korean and non-Korean, many working from primary source material. As such, this handbook will prove a valuable resource to students and scholars of Northeast Asian studies, modern Korean history and politics, and comparative politics more broadly.
Part 1: The political perspective
2. The evolution of the North Korean Socio-Political System, 1945-1994
Balázs Szalontai
3. Masters of survival: North Korean leadership in a hostile world
Andrei Lankov
4. Political economy and ideology under Kim Jong-un
Ruediger Frank
Part 2: The North Korean economy
5. The structural transformation of the North Korean economic planning system
Peter Ward
6. Between the markets and the state: North Korea’s fragile agriculture and food supply
Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein
7. North Korea’s interaction with the global economy
Justin Hastings
Part 3: Foreign relations
8. ‘The enemies made this possible’: Sino-North Korean relations after 1948
Adam Cathcart and Yujin Lim
9. Nuclear weapons and North Korean foreign policy
Shane Smith
10. North Korea's nuclear diplomacy
Leszek Buszynski
11. Revival of an old friendship: Contemporary North Korea-Russia Relations
Anthony V. Rinna
12. Once more with feeling the US-DPRK dialogue 1993-2020
Adrian Buzo
Part 4: Society
13. Human rights and North Korea
Sandra Fahy
14. The ‘market value’ of people in North Korea
Kim Seokhyang
15. Child mass mobilization in North Korea
Kim Miju
16. The North Korean diaspora
Sheena Chestnut Greitens
Part 5: Culture
17. The evolution of cultural policy and practice in North Korea, seen through the journal Chosŏn ŭmak (Korean music)
Keith Howard
18. Love of the lover, love of the Leader: youth romance in North Korean fiction
Alek Sigley
19. Mass culture in the Kim Jong Un era: continuities and changes
Tatiana Gabroussenko
Biography
Adrian Buzo has published widely on North Korean politics and history. The second edition of his The Guerilla Dynasty: Politics and Leadership in the DPRK was published by Routledge in 2018. He currently teaches at the University of New South Wales.
