Woo Seon Cho

North Koreans have relied on the shadow economy since the collapse of socialism in the 1990s, but little is known about the degree to which informal markets have influenced the country’s everyday politics. Based on a large-scale survey of defectors, as well as interviews with almost 100 defectors, including some who had been high-ranking officials prior to leaving North Korea, this article finds that the shadow economy has elicited many changes. First, informal marketisation has affected social

Abstract American policy toward China during the early Cold War has long been considered as a prime anomaly to balance of power theory. Many realists have argued that domestic forces caused a confrontational policy, overriding structural imperative to accommodate China to balance the stronger Soviet power in Asia. Refuting the domestic explanation, I argue that balance of power consideration primarily determined the U.S. policy. Under the powerful pressure of bipolar competition, the Truman admi

Abstract The Eisenhower administration's tough containment policy toward China has been conventionally viewed as an unsensible policy resulting from domestic political pressures or ideology. Refuting the conventional explanations, this article argues that during the early Cold War, the US superiority in bipolarity drove China to balance the United States in Asia. Dulles, the architect of the China policy, made accurate assessments of the power structure in Asia and the inevitable enmity with Chi

The North Korean nuclear problem has entered a new stage as Pyongyang has developed more robust nuclear capabilities with the successful launch of a long-range missile in December 2012, a third nuclear test in 2013, and further missile tests in June 2014. The United States is now beginning to face the real risk that North Korea could soon develop the capability to directly strike the U.S. homeland. This situation has also raised concern among South Koreans about the credibility of extended deter

In my paper, I will examine the strategic logic of U.S. China policy and evaluate its feasibility. U.S. governments and the advocates of engagement policy have argued that the economic and institutional integration of China into international community and its democratization can induce it to rise peacefully. However, I argue that the U.S. China policy after the Cold War has been primarily driven by realist power calculations. The U.S. aims to maintain the status quo of U.S. dominance in Asia th

Since the collapse of the command economy in the 1990s, North Korea has experienced profound changes driven by bottom-up marketization. This paper examines the impact of informal marketization on “social capital” (defined as shared norms and social networks) in North Korea. Our study investigates whether and to what extent the shadow economy has influenced social capital in the region. We gathered data through a survey of 1309 defectors, interviews with approximately 100 defectors, and in-depth