| dc.description.abstract | North Korea is often perceived as a nefarious regime arming itself with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens. Since 1988 the country has been put on the United States’ list of states that sponsor terrorism, mainly because of two incidents, and was classified as a rogue state. This research will analyze the process of becoming perceive as a rogue state on the international stage in relation to the way North Korea behaves regarding security and human rights. International relations studies often overlook the importance of individual decision-making in the state-behavior, while the decisions individuals make can be of crucial importance. Therefore, this research focuses on the period North Korea was ruled by Kim Il Sung from 1948 till 1994, who is considered to be the founding father of modern day North Korea. By doing so, the international level will be combined with the national and individual level of analysis which all contributed to North Korea’s unique position within the international state system.
First of all, this research discusses the concept of rogue states and how it developed over time. Prior to the late 1970s rogue state classification dealt with the way a state treats its own people, but over time the way a state behaves internationally became more important due to the changing global threat perception. Nowadays, rogue states are states that support international terrorism, desire regional expansion and a pursuit weapons of mass destruction. Because rogue states threaten common security, those states are diplomatically isolated in the international system, making them depend even more on their national military to deal with their own security issues. This downward spiral is hard to break through, as this research has shown in the case of North Korea.
Secondly, historical developments are analyses in order to provide more insight in the reasons why North Korea under Kim Il Sung behaved rogue. The Japanese occupation and the Korean War have profoundly altered Kim Il Sung’s perception on political power and state-building in that the Great Leader has created a highly secluded society based on the philosophy of Juche, the leadership culture and the concept of a garrison state. Kim Il Sung as a revolutionary individual was, thus, able to establish his utopic version of North Korea.
Finally, the concept of rogue states has been applied to North Korea under Kim Il Sung to analyze the developments in the fields of security and human rights. The leadership imitated a nuclear programme because they were disappointed in the outside world when the American bombing campaigns, that completely leveled North Korea during the Korea War, was not internationally condemned. To cope with security concerns North Korea could not let go of its ambition to develop weapons of mass destruction, while the United States could never accept a North Korea in the possession of such weapons which resulted in a Nuclear Crisis. Because direct confrontation is in none of the actors interest, conditional reciprocity in the Agreed Framework was the only way both party could come to an agreement. In the meantime, the United States the United States links North Korea’s human rights record with nuclear non-proliferation in order to alter the behavior of the latter. All in all, it can be question whether North Korea or the United States threatens common security. | |
