the forgotten Post-Colonial State: The Case for Analyzing North Korea’s Political Development Through its Shared Identity with South Korea as a Colony of Japan

By Ryan Rohrbach, HRNK Research Intern
Edited by Diletta De Luca, HRNK Research Associate

Introduction
          North Korea’s unpredictable responses to the international community’s efforts to curb human rights violations and maintain peace in East Asia stem from the Korean Peninsula’s unique historical context. The influence of North Korea’s 19th-20th century history has just seldom been isolated and analyzed to explain why North Korea commits its current transgressions. North Korea’s most concerning and recent actions include the pursuit of nuclear weapons, the manufacturing and selling of arms to Russia for use in the invasion of Ukraine, and the dispatch of North Korean troops to the Russian military for use in the conflict in Ukraine. At the heart of North Korea’s aggression stands the North Korean people who are unjustly imprisoned and exploited for labor and scientific advancement with disregard for the state’s human rights and economic obligations. Policymakers, advocacy organizations, and academics must fully understand the domestic motivations of the Kim regime to effectively combat North Korea’s aggression and human rights violations. However, in recent years, with the exception of reports authored by Robert Collins and other HRNK authors, analyses of North Korea’s domestic politics have slowed and policymakers have become discouraged as many view North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile development as seemingly “unstoppable.”[1]

            Often responding unpredictably and abnormally to coercive policy initiative from U.S.-aligned nations, the durability of the Kim regime has posed several questions to the international community. First, why do North Korea and South Korea have such different political systems? Second, why has the Kim regime proved to be stable despite North Korea’s history of economic woes and natural disasters? Lastly, what policies can the U.S. and its allies take to stop and reverse the long-term effects of the Kim regime’s systemic human rights violations on North Korea’s future sociopolitical and economic development?

          The sociopolitical history of North Korea and South Korea undoubtedly affects the form that the current North Korean and South Korean polity take. Naturally, answers to these questions should be approached through analyses of North Korea’s divergent sociopolitical development from the human rights-respecting polity that comprised the whole Korean Peninsula to the current authoritarian polity occupying the Korean Peninsula north of the 38th parallel. To reinvigorate efforts to understand North Korea, I suggest a new avenue for analysis of the development of the North Korean polity and society: post-colonial theory. Post-colonial theory is a group of theories that describe the general political, economic, and social development of states that are former colonies of the previous world’s empires. The field of post-colonial studies offers many relatively uncontested theories. Compared to states that were never subjected to the rule of a metropole, former colonies are significantly more vulnerable to authoritarianism, experience lower GDP growth rates, are more likely to develop socialist economies, and are less socioeconomically developed.[2] Post-colonial governments are also more likely to pursue predatory policies while legislative initiatives are inhibited by high degrees of social factionalism.[3] The predisposition of former colonies to these general patterns of political development caused by its identity as a former colony is known as the former colony’s “colonial legacy.”[4] With the history of having been colonized by the Empire of Japan, post-colonial theory largely explains the development of North Korea into its current state.

The Problem: A Lack of Information and Decreasing Motivation

          The goals of explaining why the North Korean polity developed so into today’s state and finding solutions to rectify the Kim regime’s human rights violations motivate many organizations, academics, and policymakers. However, progress on the search for answers to these questions is stalling for many reasons. Since the beginning of the Coronavirus Pandemic, there has been a dearth of breakthroughs in academic research on variables that are associated with increasing or decreasing levels of democracy and sociopolitical development. Academics’ primary research foci have recently shifted from democracy and development to public opinion, political psychology, predictive legislative politics, and election politics.[5] Subsequently, conflicts in the Middle East and Europe have largely taken the attention of the international community from the Kim regime’s human rights violations. Increasing numbers of international issues requiring the attention of analysts and policymakers decreases the focus with which analysts and policymakers can approach North Korea-related problems. Coupled with the ever present lack of new information on domestic North Korean politics and the slowing pace of North Korean politics that began in the late 2010s, many policymakers have become discouraged from confronting remaining questions about North Korea.

            Advocacy organizations and academics must remain empathetic to the discouragement of policymakers and the public. However, policymakers, academics, and advocacy organizations must reevaluate, respecify, and redouble their efforts to understand North Korea’s sociopolitical development. To find an answer to these questions, governments must articulate clear objectives and continue to pursue policies that are unequivocally effective in promoting a state’s respect for human rights and good governance. The international community’s lack of effective policymaking and political coordination towards promoting respect for human rights by the Kim regime and good governance by the North Korean polity has allowed North Korea to commit more brazen and contentious acts such as sending troops to aid Russia in its conflict with Ukraine. Nebulous policy objectives have discouraged US administrations from pursuing well defined, comprehensive, long-term, and unequivocally effective policy.

Comparative Analyses of Both Koreas through Post-Colonial Theory

          The decline of communism and the end of the Cold War in Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East reduced the intensity of academic studies on the impact of a state’s historical identity on that state’s modern government. However, I believe that comparing the post-colonial sociopolitical and economic development of South Korea and North Korea will provide novel answers to policymakers’ questions. Through facile consideration of South Korea and North Korea in post-colonial theory, South Korea’s development into a bureaucratic democracy with a strong capitalist economy was less likely than South Korea’s theoretical development into an authoritarian socialist state like contemporary North Korea. The discontinuity of South Korea and North Korea’s development raises the question about why South Korea and North Korea developed into states with very different modern identities.

          In post-colonial theory, the identity of the colonial power and the length of the colonization are the variables with the largest impact on the size of the autocracy-promoting effect of a state’s colonial legacy on the state’s post-colonial government. North Korea and South Korea were unified and subjugated to the same colonial administration for the same length of time. Given the inexplicability of South Korea’s current political and economy strength through post-colonial theory, it is incredibly important to compare South Korea’s rejection of its colonial legacy and consequent development into a bureaucratic capitalist democracy with North Korea’s development of a socialist and authoritarian polity. Transparent access to records of the South Korean government’s development enables comparisons of North Korea’s development in the context of North Korea and South Korea’s shared identity as a former colony of the Empire of Japan.

            Many post-colonial theory case studies have been conducted on African and Latin American countries that were previous colonies of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and other European states. The prodigious literature on post-colonial analyses of African and Latin American states should serve as a guide for future post-colonial analyses of North Korea and South Korea. It was a study on the connection between socialism and anti-colonial nationalism in Africa that first averred a link between socialism, anti-colonial nationalism, and a state’s colonial legacy.[6] Through comparisons of settler-colonies such as South Africa and non-settler colonies such as the DRC, academics also established the link between a state’s colonial legacy, the strength of the state’s social institutions, and the state’s level of socioeconomic development.[7]

            Of considerable importance in post-colonial analyses of North Korea and South Korea is the mid-1900s Communist Party in South Korea. The role of Communism in early South Korean society is important to understand for many reasons. According to post-colonial theory, South Korea’s moderate- to large-sized Communist faction was likely a byproduct of South Korea’s experience under Japanese rule. During South Korea’s era as a trustee of the U.S. and incipient independent rule, the rise of Communism in South Korea was a major policy issue that spurred South Korean leaders to act in autocratic fashion. In the unified Korea before August 1945, communities inhabiting modern North Korea and South Korea subscribed to the same Communist faction. Understanding of the link between South Korea’s colonial legacy and the ideology, resources, and network of Communism in early South Korea can be applied to explain the political dynamics of early North Korea, as South Korea’s early post-1945 Communist faction was very similar to North Korea’s early post-1945 Communist faction. Post-colonial analyses of Communism in South Korea and North Korea should also serve as a guide for comparative analyses of many other major parts of South Korea and North Korea’s society, government, and economy.
 
Concluding Remarks

          Academics’ quest to attain further understanding of the inner workings of North Korea, advocates’ goals to end and prevent further human rights violations by the North Korean government, and policymakers’ promotion of peace and economic stability in East Asia have all been stalled by the North Korean polity’s harmful domestic and international actions. A lack of progress towards academics, advocates, and policymakers’ goals has disenchanted the South Korean public, the international community, and many governments. No comprehensive analyses on South Korea or North Korea through post-colonial theory have been published, despite clear reasons to explain and resolve the authoritarianism and human rights abuses of the North Korean government through North Korea and South Korea’s shared history as a colony of the Empire of Japan.

          Explanations of North Korea’s development are enabled by South Korea’s miraculous development into a durable capitalist bureaucratic democracy. In the context of post-colonial theory, South Korea’s democratic development is less easily explained than North Korea’s autocratic development. However, comparing the sociopolitical development of North Korea and South Korea will offer insight into how South Korea rejected its colonial legacy and developed into a strong democracy. These analyses should also prescribe new policy tools to promote democracy and humanitarian economic policies in North Korea.
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            Post-colonial theory was primarily constructed through analyses of European colonialism in Africa and Latin America. However, post-colonial theory concludes that the identity of the colonial power and the length of the colonization are the most important variables in determining the effect of colonialism’s legacy on a former colony. North Korea and South Korea were subjected to the same colonial power for the same length of time. In the case of North Korea and South Korea, the time and identity variables are constant. This enables valid comparative analyses of the sociopolitical and economic development of North Korea and South Korea through post-colonial theory.

            Comparative analyses of North Korea and South Korea should be constructed through prior analyses of European colonialism in Africa and Latin America. These analyses will describe the factors that led to South Korea’s development into a durable capitalist bureaucratic democracy. The results of analyses of North Korea and South Korea’s development should objectively describe how South Korea’s democracy was achieved. These factors will serve as a roadmap for policymakers to promote humane economic policies and democracy in North Korea by respecifying the policies imposed on North Korea by the U.S. and its allies.


[1] Hamre, John, Joseph S. Nye Jr., Victor Cha, Katrin Fraser Katz, Andy Lim, and Ellen Kim. “Recommendations on North Korea Policy & Extended Deterrence.” Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic & International Studies, January 19, 2023

[2] Sørli, Mirjam E., Nils Petter Gleditsch, and Håvard Strand. 2005. "Why Is There So Much Conflict in the Middle East?" The Journal of Conflict Resolution 49 (1): 146.; Grier, Robin M. 1999. "Colonial Legacies and Economic Growth." Public Choice 98 (3/4): 317-335.; Viegi, Nicola. 2016. "The Economics of Decolonisation: Institutions, Education and Elite Formation." Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory 63 (147): 63.

[3] Diamond, Larry Jay, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset. 1995. Politics in developing countries: comparing experiences with democracy. 2nd ed. Boulder: L. Rienner Publishers. 42-43.; Bernhard, Michael, Christopher Reenock, and Timothy Nordstrom. 2004. "The Legacy of Western Overseas Colonialism on Democratic Survival." International Studies Quarterly 48 (1): 225-250.; Young, Crawford. 1994. The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 278-290.; Abernethy, David. 2000. The Dynamics of Global Dominance: European Overseas Empires, 1415-1980. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 367.

[4] Grier, Robin. 1999.

[5] This shift is evident through a review of major political science and international relations journals from 2020 onwards. Major journals include the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, International Organizations, International Studies Quarterly, and tangentially, Political Methodology.

[6] Young, Crawford. 1982. Ideology and Development in Africa. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 98.

[7] Viegi, Nicola. 2016. 63.

Ryan Rohrbach is an incoming PhD student in political science at Washington University in St. Louis. He is an alumnus of the University at Buffalo, where he received his bachelor’s degree in political science and international studies in 2024. His research focuses on developing academics and the US government’s understanding of the impact of international relations on states’ domestic governance of human rights and protest movements. He hopes to reach this goal through the expansion of statistical methods used to model Poisson-distributed data and advocacy for the use of sophisticated research methods in non-academic political science research. He believes these efforts will ultimately provide novel solutions through which the North Korean regime’s autocratic and human rights abuses can be addressed and stopped. 

Abernethy, David. 2000. The Dynamics of Global Dominance: European Overseas Empires, 1415-1980. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Bernhard, Michael, Christopher Reenock, and Timothy Nordstrom. 2004. "The Legacy of Western Overseas Colonialism on Democratic Survival." International Studies Quarterly 48 (1): 225-250. 
Diamond, Larry Jay, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset. 1995. Politics in Developing Countries: Comparing Experiences with Democracy. 2nd ed. Boulder: L. Rienner Publishers.
Grier, Robin M. 1999. "Colonial Legacies and Economic Growth." Public Choice 98 (3/4): 317-335. 
Hamre, John, Joseph S. Nye Jr., Victor Cha, Katrin Fraser Katz, Andy Lim, and Ellen Kim. “Recommendations on North Korea Policy & Extended Deterrence.” Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic & International Studies, January 19, 2023. 
Sørli, Mirjam E., Nils Petter Gleditsch, and Håvard Strand. 2005. "Why Is There so Much Conflict in the Middle East?" The Journal of Conflict Resolution 49 (1): 141-165. 
Viegi, Nicola. 2016. "The Economics of Decolonisation: Institutions, Education and Elite Formation." Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory 63 (147): 61-79. 
Young, Crawford. 1994. The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Young, Crawford. 1982. Ideology and Development in Africa. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.