North Korean Policy Elites - Defense Technical Information Center

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This study offers findings of on-going research and analysis of the North Korean
leadership. It provides the reader with a theory on the how the North Korean system operates. It
discusses the potential for factions among the senior leadership, their interaction with Kim
Chong-il, and strategies for maintaining regime stability. The paper also examines the sources of
information available to the elite, both in terms of internal and external communications, and
efforts to monitor and control access to such information. An effort is also made to describe the
lens through which the leadership receives, assimilates, and interprets information. The paper is
based in large measure on extensive interviews, conducted by the author over the past decade
with a number of North Korean defectors and “Pyongyang watchers,” including former Russian
and Chinese diplomats who have served in North Korea, former South Korean officials,
journalists, and academics. 1
A. KEY FINDINGS
The Technology of Power
Since its inception, the North Korean regime has contained strains of indirection and
informal channels of authority, which at the same time support and weaken formal regime
structures. Like most totalitarian regimes, North Korea has both a formal political structure and
an informal one. Traditionally, the formal structure of power has been composed of the party and
state apparatuses. The institutions of both the party and state are essentially creations of Kim
Chong-il (and his father) and are designed not to limit the Suryong’s (Leader’s) power, but to
limit that of his subordinates and potential rivals and to facilitate the consolidation of his own
authority. Conflicting lines of authority between party and state provide an ad hoc system of
crosschecks and balances.
The informal leadership, which includes Kim Chong-il’s apparatus, controls real power
by virtue of its proximity to Kim and its controls over the flow of information. This Praetorian
Guard is linked to the Great Leader either by blood ties or bonds developed over decades of
service to the Kim family. It is this group of loyal servants that Kim relies on to enforce order
throughout the system and provide key advice in the decision-making process.
1 The author would like to thank Jee Sun Lee, his research assistant, who assisted him with Korean language sources.
Her contribution to this study was invaluable.
II-S-1