Going it alone? North Korea’s adaptability as a small power in a changing world

Abstract

Going at it alone? North Korea's adaptability as a small power in a changing world. This article uses small states scholarship to map North Korea's evolution from a post-colonial small state to a system-influencing state due to its nuclear weapons programme. The framework allows for contributions to: (1) The DPRK literature which in some parts has suggested the future collapse of the state, (2) The small states literature that suggests they can only survive if they integrate larger political and/or economic units, (3) The mainstream IR literature and its dominant Realist streak that considers great powers and their wills as the main drivers in contemporary world politics.

The strange case ofUSv.ZTE: a prosecution, a ban, a fine and a presidential intervention

“…Sanctions against DPRK were initially to stop its acquisition of weapons technologies, but now aim to deter its use of nuclear weapons (Shin and Moon, 2018;Grzelczyk, 2016). The Kim dynasty has ignored calls for complete verifiable and irreversible dismantlement (CVID) of its nuclear weapon systems, aware of the parallels with Ukraine and the Russian annexation of Crimea, and of the deaths of Ghaddafi in Libya and of Hussein in Iraq.…”