North Korea : beyond charismatic politics /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Kwon, Heonik, 1962-
Imprint:Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, ©2012.
Description:1 online resource : illustrations.
Language:English
Series:Asia/Pacific/perspectives
Asia/Pacific/perspectives.
Subject:
Format: E-Resource Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11403872
Hidden Bibliographic Details
Other authors / contributors:Chung, Byung-Ho, 1955-
ISBN:9781442215771
1442215771
0742556794
9780742556799
9780742556805
Notes:Title from PDF title page (viewed Aug. 1, 2012).
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:This timely, pathbreaking study of North Korea's political history and culture sheds invaluable light on the country's unique leadership continuity and succession. Leading scholars Heonik Kwon and Byung-Ho Chung begin by tracing Kim Il Sung's rise to power during the Cold War. They show how his successor, his eldest son, Kim Jong Il, sponsored the production of revolutionary art to unleash a public political culture that would consolidate Kim's charismatic power and his own hereditary authority. The result was the birth of a powerful modern theater state that sustains North K.
Other form:Print version: 9786613635105
Standard no.:9786613635105
Review by Choice Review

Kwon (Univ. of Cambridge) and Chung (Hangyang Univ., South Korea) provide invaluable insight into the role and means of charismatic politics in North Korea. They effectively argue that the regime has used elements of a theater state and family state to build and sustain its legitimacy through arduous political and economic times. The use of the arts to convey and celebrate civic virtues and to associate these virtues with Kim Il Sung, then Kim Jong Il, and now Kim Jung Un is a recurring theme. The homage paid to Kim Il Sung's wife, Kim Jong Suk, is seen as an effort of the regime to present the succession process as natural and necessary. The authors link Kim Il Jong's military-first policy to efforts to cloak himself with his father's charisma and the banner of the continuing revolutionary struggle against imperialism. While the authors acknowledge the regime's success to date, they question how much longer this family state can be sustained by actions of a theater state. They appear to imply that it may be necessary to follow China's course in the 1980s for the regime to survive. This work is highly recommended for scholars of North Korean politics and substantial graduate school collections on Northeast Asia. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate, research, and professional collections. J. M. Peek Glenville State College

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review

It is customary to refer to North Korea as the hermit kingdom and then recount various Orwellian horrors in what is undeniably an uber-totalitarian state. Yet, as this original, engrossing, but deeply unsettling study illustrates, North Korea, in a very perverse sense, works. That is, beginning with the founding of the North Korean state by Kim Il Sung, the regime has maintained itself and managed dynastic succession, avoiding the internal turmoil and violence that have occurred in other Communist states. Of course, the regime has survived with the use of massive political repression and control. But Kwon and Chung assert that the success of the regime is due to more than the usual totalitarian thuggery. The successor of Kim Il Sung, his son Kim Jong Il, created a theatre state, using a skillful manipulation of art, mass media, and political cadres to foster an aura of benevolent, paternalistic charisma. The authors clearly know North Korea, and their arguments are credible, but they are chillingly divorced from moral considerations. Still, this is a timely work, since the recent death of Kim Jong Il will test the stability of the regime.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

At the dawn of Kim Jong-Un's reign, professors Kwon (University of Cambridge) and Chung (Hanyang University, South Korea) deliver a penetrating (and endnote laden) argument for how North Korea remains adamantly isolated and surprisingly stable. Beginning their analysis in 1994 with the Great National Bereavement triggered by the death of Kim Il Sung, the authors backtrack to evaluate the means by which the Great Leader created the personality cult that has persisted through the reign of his late son, Kim Jong Il, and grandson, Kim Jong Un. Massive parades displaying military might, frequent publicity trips made by the successive leaders throughout the country, and enormous (and numerous) public artworks depicting the lineage ensured "a transition of power based on hereditary charisma" and son'gun, North Korea's governing political and social ideology that prioritizes the military before all other segments of society. While the book was completed before Kim Jong Un's formal ascension in December 2011, Kwon (The Other Cold War) and Chung offer valuable insights into the evolution of a philosophy and nation determined to look inward and carry on in the 21st century as a neo-Confucian state built on the concepts of loyalty to a perceived sovereign (ch'ung) and filial piety (hyo). Given the message broadcast to spectators and the rest of the world at a recent festival-"Do not hope for any change in me!"-North Korea seems poised to stay the course whatever the costs. Illus. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.


Review by Library Journal Review

Kwon (professorial senior research fellow, Trinity Coll., Univ. of Cambridge, UK; Ghosts of War in Vietnam), a social anthropologist, and Chung (cultural anthropology, Hanyang Univ., South Korea) undertake a carefully constructed study of the evolution of North Korea since Kim Il Sung's rise to power. What is now distinct about the North Korean state that the "Great Leader" founded is not its dictatorship, the power of the military, or the political system set in place. Rather, it's that North Korea is the only nation-state with a "charismatic revolutionary leader" at its apex that not only survived the Cold War but created a dynasty, now passed to the third generation, unlike its Soviet and Chinese counterparts. With many references to Clifford Geertz's studies of symbolic anthropology, the authors explore how North Korea succeeded-in this respect-where other postcolonial dictatorships have failed. They find an intensifying use of symbols, especially expressed in art and architecture, a kind of "theater state" that has risen to counter the absence of the apparent genuine heroism and charisma present at North Korea's founding. VERDICT A clearly written but decidedly academic text that should be of interest to all serious North Korea watchers.-Margaret -Heilbrun, Library JournalÅ (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Choice Review


Review by Booklist Review


Review by Publisher's Weekly Review


Review by Library Journal Review