North Korea's Foreign Policy: The DPRK's Part on the International Scene and Its Audiences by Lenka Caisova

Author:Lenka Caisova [Caisova, Lenka]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Ethnic Studies, Social Science, Political Science, World, Asian, Regional Studies, General
ISBN: 9781351028080
Google: nNNyDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-10-12T11:41:45+00:00

Figure 4.7 Active independent: role changes as found in The Pyongyang Times (PT, The Pyongyang Times; KT, Korea Today).

Source: the author.

Figure 4.8 Active independent: role changes as found in The Pyongyang Times.

Source: the author.

Isolate

Once again, the role isolate was present in Holsti’s typology. He defined it as a role which implies the demand of ‘a minimum of external contacts of whatever variety’ (Holsti 1970, p. 270). I identified it according to North Korean references to ‘never tolerate any moves that encroach upon the dignity and sovereignty of the country and the nation’ (Kim T. I. 1994, p. 3), to ‘defend the bulwark of socialism’ (Kim J. I. 1995, p. 4), to ‘make the whole country an impregnable fortress’ (Kim 2006, p. 2) and to the declarations of the North Korean peoples’ will to ‘risk their lives to defend the national dignity [and]10 never trade their national dignity for fortune’ (Kim 2003, p. 2). It is also possible to notice that the isolate role is often declared together with the anti-imperialist agent role through the whole dataset (which will be discussed later on, pp. 60–61) which helped me to link it with a particular group of significant others (see p. 78 and following). To sum up, this role mainly refers to the North Korean need to show the international audience that it perceives its sovereignty, dignity and political system as crucial values it is fully prepared to protect and that it is not willing to make any concessions in this respect at all.

Furthermore, it is also interesting to observe the role conflict present in North Korean role sets containing both the role active independent, which implies the DPRK’s effort to establish relations with as many countries as possible, and the role isolate, which creates significant limits for external contacts. The DPRK was even putting approximately equal emphasis on both roles in several years of the dataset (namely, in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2013 and 2015) and the roles constituted approximately the same share of the North Korean role sets, which further underlines the role conflict.

Once again, the meaning of the role remained relatively stable during the researched period, as it constantly referred to defence of the national dignity and sovereignty, rejection of outside pressure and the need to preserve the country as an ‘impregnable fortress’ (Kim 2006, p. 2).

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