 Authoritarian survival strategies and elite churn: The case of North KoreaJohn Ishiyama and Taekbin Kim International Area Studies Review, 2020, vol. 23, issue 2, 160-176 Abstract: How do autocrats interact with authoritarian elites? This is a question that has gained increasing scholarly attention over the past decade. In this article, using the case of North Korea we develop a set of theoretical expectations for “elite churn†or changes in the composition of the elite (either in terms of promotions, demotions, or new entrants) resulting from moving around elites from office to office (or “elite shuffle†) and bringing in new elites. We test a number of theoretical expectations derived from the existing literature on elite management in autocracies and then examine these expectations using a panel data set of 351 members of the North Korean elite from 1948–2017. Taking into account leadership characteristics, threats to the regime (both internal and external), external opportunities, and structural factors, we find that the explanation for elite churn in North Korea is very leader specific, and is much more pronounced under Kim Jong Un than his predecessors. This suggests that Kim Jong Un’s position was much more tenuous than his father’s and grandfather’s and likely continues to be so. Keywords: North Korea; authoritarianism; elite management; cooptation; elite shuffle (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:intare:v:23:y:2020:i:2:p:160-176 Access Statistics for this article More articles in International Area Studies Review from Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies |
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