North Korea in International Politics

Abstract

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) occupies a paradoxical position in international politics, viewed as both militarily formidable and economically fragile due to chronic isolation and international sanctions. Emerging in 1948 under Soviet occupation following World War II and Japanese colonial rule, North Korea’s unique state system was solidified under Cold War divisions, decolonization, and the Korean War (1950–1953). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, North Korea was close to economic collapse, undergoing natural disasters, famine, and leadership transition after the founder Kim Il-sung’s death. The series of overlapping crises that unfolded in the 1990s—humanitarian disasters and nuclear brinkmanship—embedded North Korea as both dangerous and unstable in global security discourses. Since the 1990s, North Korea has been framed as both a “strong” and “weak” state, combining military “strengths”—most notably its nuclear and missile programs—with profound domestic “weaknesses,” including economic fragility and humanitarian crises. This duality is central to how the DPRK has been represented and problematized as dangerous and unstable in regional and global security discourse. However, seeing North Korea solely through the binary lens of “strengths” and “weaknesses” reproduces a realist and liberal worldview that emerged at the end of the Cold War, where the dominant practice of international politics revolves around state-centric security.