Viewed from afar, North Korea may appear bizarre, or positively irrational. But as Nicholas Eberstadt demonstrates in this meticulously researched volume, there is a grim coherence to North Korea's political economy, and a ruthless logic undergirding it--one that unreservedly subordinates economic welfare to augmentation of political power. Thus, paradoxically, even as official policies and practices consign the DPRK economy to a perilous realm between crisis and catastrophe, the country's leadership maintains unchallenged domestic control and has actually managed to increase its international influence. Through painstaking collection of hard-to-uncover data and careful analysis, Eberstadt provides a quantitative tableau of North Korea's terrible failure in its economic race against South Korea; its stubborn adherence to policies all but guaranteed to stifle growth and undermine economic performance; and the longstanding official effort to ignore, or mitigate, pressures for economic reform. Eberstadt is skeptical of optimistic accounts from South Korea and elsewhere suggesting that the North Korean leadership is interested in resolving the current nuclear impasse, and getting on with the business of reform and development. So long as Pyongyang's rulers entertain the ambition of reunifying the Korean peninsula on its own terms, Eberstadt argues, economic reforms worthy of the name will be subversive of state authority--and vigilantly resisted by Pyongyang's rulers. This authoritative volume has received widespread attention from Asian specialists, well as those concerned with nuclear proliferation and world peace, and international relations professionals in general.

Product Description: Examines the region's demographic challenges, the curious new phenomenon of the underworked European, and policies that stand in the way of the region benefiting from its health advantage.

Analyzes the misuse and misinterpretation of statistics by policy makers and demonstrates how domestic and foreign policies have been justified by inaccurate facts and figures

Product Description: This work presents a detailed picture of the divergent socio-economic trends in divided Korea since its 1945 partition. It also covers the social and political situation in the North and South today, and the domestic and international challenges to a successful Korean reunification...read more

Product Description: Korea Research Monograph #17 Institute of East Asian Studies University of California, Berkeley Filled with charts, statistics and graphs, the book contains data provided to the author by DPRK Central Statistics Bureau personnel in 1990...read more