The J-Curve and North Korea
by Richardson ~ October 2nd, 2006. Filed under: Axis of Evil, Democracy, Engagement, Geopolitics. 
North Korea has a place of prominence in Ian Bremmer’s book, “The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall” (H/T Ian). I agree with North Korea’s dependence on isolation for survival (strategic disengagement), but not the characterization of North Korea as “stable”:
. . . the Bush administration insists that if Kim Jong Il’s government would dismantle its nuclear program, the U.S. government would support North Korea’s integration into the family of nations. If it refuses, Washington will “further deepen North Korea’s isolation,” Rice said.
What the United States seems not to recognize is that the world’s most repressive regimes depend on isolation to survive; they are stable precisely because they are closed. Kim knows he must hide North Korea from the outside world, and the outside world from North Koreans.
If half the people of North Korea watched 30 minutes of CNN (or al-Jazeera, for that matter) and fully understood the damage wrought by their government’s catastrophic policies and brutality — or the contrasting standards of living in Japan and South Korea — Kim’s regime might not survive. Threatening that regime with isolation is like threatening a drowning man with a lifeboat. (emphasis added)
Many Korea-watchers, myself included, believe that a Korean reunification is inevitable, although there is not credible timeline for the event. While South Korea has been “engaging” North Korea in order to facilitate a “soft” vice “hard” landing, I count myself in the camp that believes that the best we can hope for is a “hard” vice “harder” landing. Bremmer points to that issue for isolated states opening:
So, what is the best way to transform a stable but closed state into a stable and open one? Historically, such transformations have required countries to go through a dangerous period of turmoil.
Which he ties to what the U.S. faces in Iraq:
In the Middle East, the Bush administration is seeking to spread democracy and free markets — in essence, to transform closed states into open ones. But imposing such a transformation from the outside is likely to exacerbate the transitional turmoil, as U.S. troops in Iraq are discovering every day. It’s easy to push a closed state into instability; it’s much tougher to help its citizens build a new political stability based on openness.
A bit on the Bremmer’s J-curve theory itself:
How does the curve work? The J is suspended between a vertical axis, “stability”, and a horizontal axis, “openness” (to both political and economic reforms).
At the top left of the graph are totalitarian dictatorships. North Korea is the classic example. At the top right are Western democracies, such as the United States and Britain. “Think about the presidential election here in 2000,” says Bremmer. “The other guy got more votes, the result was decided by a controversial Supreme Court vote, and what happened? Nothing. That’s stability.”
The world would be a much safer place if countries could leap across the top of the graph, staying stable while introducing democracy and free markets. But that is not what happens. Although dictatorships can be amazingly stable – Castro has been in power since Eisenhower’s presidency – the moment the prison door swings open, things fall apart.
Authoritarian states or command economies typically move down the J curve once their citizens taste freedom. And the downwards slope is usually pretty steep. The climb to the sunny uplands of free-market democracy, by contrast, is a painfully slow business. The slope may be gentle, but the journey can take decades, if it is completed at all.
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October 2nd, 2006 at 2:26 pm
When I read this I immediately thought “He hasn’t read a thing about North Korea since 1995″, but then saw his reference to the profusion of South Korean tapes in the North (though in the context of their being seized by the state).
The North has seen drastic decreases in rule of law. As arbitrary as it may have been under KIS, reports coming out of the North indicate that the decade of shortages has increased the security apparatus’ reliance on bribery and other thuggery to survive. Given KJI’s “Army First” strategy to prolong his regime at all costs, there is no check on military police abuses. Bribery has given way to other lawbreaking that weakens the state - the exodus across the northern border, growth in black market trading. Not to mention the illicit media - video, radio, cell phone - that is undermining the state-controlled “everything is wonderful” message.
Hardly stable.
October 2nd, 2006 at 2:52 pm
The J Curve is an interesting explanation of how countries work.
South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan are great examples of countries that have completed the J Curve.
China, Vietnam, Mongolia, Russia, Pakistan, and others are in the process of going through the J Curve.
Once North Korea overthrows the tyranny of communism, it can be just as successful as South Korea, and even be reunited.
Iraq and Afghanistan are on the downward slope of instability. This has something to do with their culture of violence and fundamentalist Islam.
October 2nd, 2006 at 3:35 pm
re: your comments
‘If half the people of North Korea watched 30 minutes of CNN (or al-Jazeera, for that matter) and fully understood the damage wrought by their government’s catastrophic policies and brutality — or the contrasting standards of living in Japan and South Korea — Kim’s regime might not survive.’
obviously it’s not half the population, but it seems as though there are bootleg DVD’s/VCR tapes of South Korean movies and dramas being illegally imported into NK. as they watch these media, even though these NK’s are absolutely completely filled with propaganda, i will give them the benefit of the doubt that they believe their own eyes. (i.e. an outdoor urban scene of seoul in a K drama where they see lights, stores, restaurants, people, and most notably…..traffic. or even an indoor scene. electricity…., or just the fact that everyone has cell phones) basically a complete 360 of everything they’ve ever been told about ‘miserable’ seoul.
anyways, i am also assuming that most of these people that can even afford to purchase a bootleg dvd/VCR tape are those that have expendable won and don’t need the money to buy more rice, uh, i mean corn. basically, the upper classes.
so even if it’s 5% or even 2% or 1% of the upper class, then it’s a good start for them to share the info that KJI has been lying to them all.
the fall of our buddy Ceausescu started at some point with 1% dissent as well.
October 2nd, 2006 at 4:26 pm
The problem with the J Curve graph is that things like “stability” and “openness” are not quantifiable or measurable. Therefore, serious researchers would not use a graph like this.
October 2nd, 2006 at 4:39 pm
Mi-hwa, that’s not correct at all. Like anything else, one would define various variables/points to be measured, how the data would be evaluated, and then plot it. The types of data are not abstract, but real; does a country allow X, Y, Z? To what extent (e.g., by law and/or practice, etc.)? Scores would be assigned accordingly. Research is done like that all the time. What do you think social science is?
October 2nd, 2006 at 6:06 pm
To Richardson: The kind of science that you described is pseudo-science because there are no universal standards for measuring things like “stability” and “openness”.
October 2nd, 2006 at 6:17 pm
Why don’t you go try to convince all the social scientists? Good luck with that.
October 2nd, 2006 at 7:37 pm
Bremmer has a good point to make here and one that deserves serious scrutiny especially since he begins with the obvious premise that North Korea policy should be described in two words: regime change. How that comes about is the issue. Its not clear Bremmer is saying we should also engage with the regime to open it up or limit it to engagement with the people even if that effort might been dealing with lower level or mid-level types. one thing he does not say in the Korea section of his book (though I’m not sure if he advocatges it in some of the other countriees like Iran or Cuba) is whether we should tighten the noose specifically on identified leaders, the ones who have the most to lose from a regime change. Doing so would obviously limit how one is able to negotiate the kind of opening that is hoped for. re the exchnange with Mi-hwa and Richardson, i think concepts like stability and openness are quantifiable. we do these things all the time, but by the same token, what the measures mean is quite something else. continue the debate.
October 2nd, 2006 at 11:51 pm
Hmmm. A J-curve… Where did I hear about it before?
This review on Amazon captures it best for me:
On my other blog, Guns and Butter Blog, a reader and I discussed this Davies J-curve, which pre-dates Dr. Bremmer’s work (Davies J-curve in Chinese context and more on the Davies J-curve).
“On shoulders of giants” as Bernard of Chartres said.
October 12th, 2006 at 4:46 am
To Richardson
I believe you miss the point of Mi-Hwa. Perhaps the term Pseudo-science is not correct, but I believe the point is that while contemporary research strives to apply measurable quantities to illustrate outcomes (immediate) and predict trends (long-term), the ideas of “openess” cannot simply be measured by quantifying number of newspapers, etc since these paramaters are entirely relative! Thus, comparing the J-curves of a collection of different countries is meaningless, and thus, not true science.
October 13th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
James,
I am sure I did not miss her point; she’s attempting to apply physical ‘hard’ science methods to social science – obviously I strongly disagree. We’ll just have to disagree on whether or not social science research methodologies are ‘real’ science or not.
April 4th, 2008 at 4:34 am
Mi-hwa:
While it is indeed difficult for social science to make absolute measurements (due to the impossibility of using the scientific method with humans and societies), it IS useful for making RELATIVE judgments.
If you were to actually read the book, you would see that Bremer himself proposes no such absolute scale. There is no proposed unit of “stabilons” and “openons.” It is useful to determine stability RELATIVE to other countries.
Or we could just stick to the infallible science of Juche….