북한 국가의 성격: 기존 논의의 검토와 제언 = How can we define North Korea as a state?

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

After reviewing a broad spectrum of literatures, this paper proposes The Suryong-centered Socialist Party-State as its proper name, and presents its connotation and denotation. North Korea is basically a socialist state. But it has Suryong as its top leader. Suryong is not an institutional post, but a post inside and over the official institution of the party-state. Although Suryong enjoys absolute position and decisive role, the intrinsic characteristic of North Korea is still that of a socialist state. In this sense, North Korea is The Suryong-centered Socialist Party-State. This state is based on a socialist economic structure. It has a socialist party-state system as its formal political system with Suryong inside and over it, who directs the state toward a perfect totalitarian dictatorship. It has a very effective system of physical coercion, control, surveillance and mobilization, and has an official ideology, the Juche ideology, which is a North Korean version of Korean nationalism.