HOW INCREASED INFORMATION ACCESS AND THE SECONDARY ECONOMY HAVE IMPACTED REGIME STABILITY IN NORTH KOREA

Abstract

As perhaps the world’s most closed-off nation, North Korea attracts global attention for its extreme authoritarian governance and impoverished population. Some North Korea analysts, though, question whether the Kim regime is sustainable, pointing in particular to the expansion of the secondary economy and increased access to outside information, which might be eroding the regime’s ability to exert its power over the North Korean population. Others believe these factors’ impacts are negligible and might even present the regime with the ability to exert power in new ways. This thesis analyzes both the extent to which these two factors have changed North Korean society and countermeasures the regime has implemented to counter their regime-threatening effects. It ultimately contends that the effects of expanded information access and secondary market activity on regime stability are likely negligible.