Politics

This past June, President Bush made a series of telephone calls to leaders in the region calling on them to use their influence with Pyongyang in an effort to halt…

In September 2008, reports began to circulate in the world media that Chairman Kim Jong-il might be in serious condition after having suffered a stroke, and discussion on possible post-Kim…

The dramatic events of recent months—and, above all, North Korea’s second nuclear test and long-range missile launch—demonstrated once again that the Barack Obama administration and the international community at large…

Security relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea, like those of any other two closely entwined neighbors, glisten with the multiple facets of complexity. A number of structural conditions…

What Happened The presidential candidate for the People’s Power Party, Yoon Suk-yeol, introduced an AI version of himself to demonstrate his intimacy with technology. In response, Democratic Party’s presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung created a chatbot that answers question about his campaign. Presidential candidate Kim Dong-yeon also introduced an Artificial Intelligence spokesperson to make it easier to engage with voters…

A curious feature of advanced industrial states is anxiety about the future of democracy, not only abroad but at home as well. These worries—encapsulated in the concept of backsliding--have been particularly evident in the United States following the challenges posed by the Trump administration. The bruising fight over Brexit in Britain and the rise of…

In the last two posts, we have provided data on the share of military personnel in the Politburo and analyzed in more detail the diversity of military backgrounds, some tied to the weapons program, but others linked more clearly to the military-industrial complex, technology and internal security. Here, we consider several intepretations of these developments,…

In a previous post, we provided data on the shifting composition of the Politburo, based on a classification of personnel into six different career paths: military, diplomatic, party, state, economic and provincial. We showed that since the failed Hanoi summit of 2018, the share of military personnel has returned to levels not seen since the…