Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights Into North Korea
Jan 2011 · Peterson Institute
Ebook
182
Pages
About this ebook
Despite its nuclear capability, in certain respects North Korea resembles a failed state sitting uneasily atop a shifting internal foundation. This instability is due in part to the devastating famine of the 1990s and the state's inability to fulfill the economic obligations that it had assumed, forcing institutions, enterprises, and households to cope with the ensuing challenges of maintaining stability with limited cooperation between the Korean government and the international community. The ineffective response to the humanitarian crisis triggered by the famine resulted in the outflow of perhaps tens of thousands of refugees whose narratives are largely overlooked in evaluating the efficacy of the humanitarian aid program. Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights into North Korea uses extensive surveys with refugees who now reside in China or South Korea to provide extraordinary insight into the changing pathways to power, wealth, and status within North Korea. These refugee testimonies provide an invaluable interpretation of the regime, its motivations, and its capabilities and assess the situation on the ground with the rise of inequality, corruption, and disaffection in the decade since the famine. Through the lens of these surveys, preeminent North Korean experts Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland carefully document the country's transition from a centrally planned economy to a highly distorted market economy, characterized by endemic corruption and widening inequality. The authors chart refugees' reactions to the current conditions and consider the disparity between the perceived and real benefit of the international humanitarian aid program experienced by this displaced population. Finally, the book examines these refugees' future prospects for integration into a new society.
Despite its nuclear capability, in certain respects North Korea resembles a failed state sitting uneasily atop a shifting internal foundation. This instability is due in part to the devastating famine of the 1990s and the state's inability to fulfill the economic obligations that it had assumed, ...
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About the author
Marcus Noland, Senior Fellow, has been the Senior Economist for International Economics at the Council of Economic Advisers, as well as a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Southern California, Tokyo University, Saitama University, the University of Ghana & a visiting scholar at the Korea Development Institute. He has written many articles on international economics & is the coauthor of Global Economic Effects of the Asian Currency Devaluations (1998), Reconcilable Differences? United States-Japan Economic Conflict with C. Fred Bergsten (1993), Pacific Basin Developing Countries: Prospects for the Future (1990) & Japan in the World Economy with Bela Balassa (1988), the coeditor of Pacific Dynamism & the International Economic System (1993) & editor of Economic Integration of the Korean Peninsula (1998).
Marcus Noland, Senior Fellow, has been the Senior Economist for International Economics at the Council of Economic Advisers, as well as a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Southern California, Tokyo University, Saitama University, the University of Ghana & a visiti...
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