Demystifying the Hermit Kingdom: the constitution and public administration in North Korea

Introduction

The December 2011 death of the ‘Dear Leader’ Kim Jong-Il and the ascendance of the seemingly ill-prepared ‘Great Successor’, Kim Jong-Un, to the throne of power have given the leaders of Asian and Western nations reasons to reinvigorate their study of North Korea (McCurry, 2011). Politics in the ‘Military-first’ dynasty of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, aka North Korea) exercises the minds of International Relations scholars, but to date there have been few attempts to investigate public administration in the DPRK (Gourevitch, 2003; Kang, 1995). ¹ The lack of focused public administration study might tempt one to conclude that the DPRK’s internal governance norms and structures are unimportant, save for their use as variables to predict the nuclearization, military conflict behavior, and international relations between North Korea, terrorist organizations and state sponsors of terror organizations, members of the ‘6 Party Talks’. Such conclusions are undesirable for three reasons. First, examining the extreme case of North Korea may enhance efforts to develop generalizable models for comparing systems of public administration under conditions of information uncertainty. By addressing this particular outlier case, we hope to advance a framework for studying public administration in other closed states, for example Myanmar and Tajikistan (Kihl, 2006).

Although the DPRK is comparatively impoverished vis-à-vis its neighbors and, indeed, the rest of the world, ² it possesses one of the largest standing armies and is of considerable strategic importance, particularly to neighbors China and South Korea (Zhang and Li, 2008: xii). As noted in recent media reports, North Korea seems to vacillate on the importance of opening its doors to interaction with the remainder of the world (Baker, 2012). Whether observers measure openness by invitations to American symphony orchestras or the opening of the North’s border towns to South Korean tourists, the opening of Kim Jong-Il’s kingdom means more international interaction, and correspondingly, more possibilities to gather reliable information for outside analysis (Wakin, 2008).

This brings us to the second reason why scholarly attention should be turned towards the administration of the North Korean government. The North Koreans’ constant striving to arm themselves, provocative foreign policy negotiation tactics, military maneuvers, and foreign aid negotiations with other nations means that opportunities for transnational administrative interaction between North Korea and other nations will not decrease in the near future. By administrative interaction we mean the development of relationships, at sub-state or agency-to-agency levels, that smooth the transfer of goods, services, technology, and personnel between North Korea and other nations in greater Asia, the EU, and the US.

Third, despite external perceptions that the Kim dynasty, now led by the ‘Great Successor’ Kim Jong-Un, controls the nation absolutely, we hypothesize that the execution of his policies by the Military and the civilian bureaucracy represents a realm of contingency and error in policy execution that begs for systematic examination if we are to better understand this enigmatic state (Chaffin, 2011a, 2011b). Understanding the origin, breadth, and depth of irregularities in policy implementation and administration, we contend, can help to provide additional explanatory power for models of internal and external decision-making in North Korea and other closed nations (T.H. Kim, 2011).

Following arguments advanced by Herbert Storing (1995a, 1995b), John Rohr (1986), and Anthony Bertelli and Larry Lynn (2006), who advocate studying constitutional documents to elaborate a theory of administrative behavior in the American context, the first source of information for advancing knowledge about the administration in North Korea is the constitution of the nation. An analysis of the Constitution of the DPRK provides a limited window into the realm of administrative norms and, tentatively, administrative action. By examining the constitution for indicators of norms for acting on the ruling elite’s preferences (see Pinkston, 2003: 5), it is possible to better categorize the appropriateness of actions taken by employees of an administrative agency to achieve technical goals and preserve moral standards considered valuable by state leadership.

Constitutional analysis in public administration

John Rohr (1986), a well-known scholar of constitutional analysis, argued that public administrators’ blessing and curse is their own constitution – the textual, legal, basis for the norms of their profession. Constitutions provide a set of ‘regime values’ and procedural expectations against which the administrator can measure his or her actions and citizens can judge the appropriateness of administrative behavior. Rohr and others suggest that administrators learn from the Constitution ‘a coherent framework for a certain kind of government’, are initiated ‘into a community created by that Constitution and obliges them to know and support constitutional principles that affect their official spheres of public service’, which ‘establishes a rhetorical public, where primary governmental activities consist of speaking, listening, and acting expressively and where national unity depends upon the commitment of citizens to learn about moral realities and to participate actively in conversations, debates and expressive actions that make those realities manifest’ (Newbold, 2010: 544). In this section, we outline an argument for the use of constitutions for explaining administrative behavior under conditions of uncertainty such as we find in the case of the DPRK.

Within the context of public administration in the global West, arguments about the role of a nation’s constitution as a source of moral and ethical guidance abound (see Rohr, 1998: 121–171; 2002). Despite differences in substantive concerns and argumentative objectives, Bertelli and Lynn (2006), Rohr (1986, 2002), Rosenbloom (1971), Rosenbloom et al. (2000), Wise (2001) and Zinke (1992) together suggest that the American constitution represents a repository of essential standards of behavior for public administrators. Rohr suggests that, via the constitutional oath taken by individual administrators and a substantial education in the text and history of the constitution and its debates, administrators learn the modal boundaries of ethical behavior. Rosenbloom (2000) and Rosenbloom et al. (2000), whose arguments Bertelli and Lynn (2006) expand upon, argue that administrative law rooted in the historical precedents of the constitution provides a surer sense of guidance than does reliance on only the individual’s socialization, ‘internal compass’ or ‘inner check’.

Although most ‘modern constitutions’, that of the DPRK included, represent a corpus of positive ‘fundamental law’, the most important arrangements within the political constitution are not necessarily reflected in legal doctrine (Roh, 2001). While positive laws are ‘initial ingredients’ of the constitution, they are also ‘a set of institutions and practices’ that shape the identity of a polity. Direct identity links with the constitution include articulation of beliefs and norms in the language of the constitution itself. Indirect identity links with the constitution include resurrection of founding myths in the quest for legitimation of a contemporary policy position. This public, shared document, the authors of public law and constitutional public administration suggest, provides ‘black letter’ and political guidance to members of the political and administrative public. In short, the constitution implies a ‘basic law of political necessity’ that the rulers, including the legislative and executive branches, need to act from in order to expeditiously tackle conflicts and complications (Loughlin, 2004: 44–47).

A constitutional school of public administration and a constitution-centered form of analysis of administrative ethics and behavior is not without problems Analytically, the test of the Constitution and the texts that precede its founding are open to multiple interpretations and emphasis. As is made clear in the discussion of the founding arguments of the American Federalists/Anti-federalists, even essential terms that shape the later Constitution are contested. How later scholars of administration deploy a concept in the constitution is, thus, a matter of time and even personal preference or prejudice, not only an expression of clear principle. The normative biases of Constitutional interpretation depend on prior assumptions about whether the Constitution should be viewed as a contract, a framework, or as merely guidance to the dominant concerns of the founding, ruling class of the time and, thus, a set of norms to be improved upon as a nation adopts a more plural or syncretistic perspective.

Other problems that present themselves in the case of a Constitutional analysis include the possibility that the constitution functions as a set of baseline analytical categories that pre-constrain the range of norms and actions that a scholar or astute administrator will examine. In a Juche constitution like that of the DPRK, an analyst might look primarily for evidence of positive self-reliance among the administrative departments, while in a constitutional democracy an analyst might look foremost for evidence of responsiveness and procedures designed to elicit citizen feedback. This potential problem is not without promise in extreme circumstances, however. Under such severe conditions of information asymmetry as we find in the DPRK case, the problem of constraints becomes a promise of a set of categories and concepts with which we can begin an analysis. As analysts confront the inaccessibility and lack of opportunity to gather systematic information, and where the information we can access is of questionable trustworthiness, relying on the constitution of any for discrete indicators of behavioral standards for public administrators is a profitable first step. In the case of the DPRK and other nations like it, an analysis of administration first based upon the constitution may represent the best of possible alternatives.

Even in an unstable regime such as the DPRK, the constitution itself is relatively stable (the DPRK Constitution was amended significantly once in 1998). In a realm of general uncertainty about the practice of the Constitution, such as in communist and totalitarian states, the Constitutions are not necessarily wholly irrelevant: while they may embody practically unenforceable ideals (e.g. political rights, due process, judicial independence, and the like) and be superseded by secret decrees and resolutions (Gause, 2006: 4), they may function as authoritative ideological statements and focal points that signal new policy directions and coordinate political factions (Elkins et al., 2009: 172). Although in these cases we lack the usual tools such as survey data, administrative law decisions, or independent media investigations to verify that government norms are put into administrative practice, we assume that documents such as the North Korean Constitution specify the values that administrators must fulfill in tasks of policy implementation. Just as we lack any way of verifying that the constitutional values are implemented in policy practice, we have no way of claiming that these values are not routinely referred to in policy decisions. In this case, the 1998 constitutional amendments, which marked Kim Jong-Il’s formal rise to power (Pinkston, 2003: 3), as Zhang and Li (2008) state, were intended to more clearly and forcefully articulate the goods that Kim Jong-Il’s government believed citizens ought to co-produce with the regime. Constitutional amendments have been regarded by the regime as conducive to the consolidation of Kim Jong-Il’s power and helped to clarify the role of North Korea’s two-principled ideology of Juche, or self-reliance, and ‘Military-first’. We examine the integration of these values into the Constitutional practice of the administration in the following section.

The North Korean Constitution

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a distinctive state, but, like other dictatorships, it has few elements that are compatible with its formal name. Clearly portraying the paradox of North Korean democracy, the citizens of this ‘democratic’, ‘republican’, ‘workers’ paradise’ often succumb to starvation due to agricultural collectivization policies, endure exile in Gulag style camps, and weather policies made without public consultation in accordance with the pronouncements of the ruling member of the Kim dynasty (Amnesty International, 2010). In real terms, the DPRK is a state dependent on foreign largesse, languishing in a state of decline because of economic poverty, famine, and intermittent, unmanageable natural crises, coupled with systematic political repression (Kihl. 2006).

Unlike Western democratic politics, the pattern of ‘democracy’ in North Korea is a form of Stalinist democratic centralism. Yet the DPRK way of governing is a ‘[North] Korean Style’ of Stalinism (Armstrong, 2001: 44). Cheong (2000: 156) affirms that the incumbent North Korean regime still upholds Stalinist thinking, with the addition of Confucian values of loyalty and filial piety. Cheong suggests that the growing complexity of the North Korean political-economic system makes it difficult to identify some Stalinist features, but the emphasis on personal power and cult, a political culture of terror, the perpetuation of a monolithic ideology and a Great Leader-centered political system suggest that the regime is essentially Stalinist. In conjunction with the mythology and state-led worship of the ‘Great Leader’ Kim Il-Sung, and the personal cult of Kim Jong-Il, the Dear Leader, the government of the DPRK is far more penetrating and aggressive than that of Stalin, even the Stalin of the 1930s.

The origin of this ‘[North] Korean Style’ of communist Stalinist government emanates from the unique ideology of the state – Kim Il-Sung invented Juche. The ideology of ‘Juche’ officially replaced the principles of Marxism-Leninism during the Fifth Congress of the Korean Worker’s Party in 1970. As Lee (2003: 105) states:

Kim Il-Sung explained [that] ‘establishing juche means, in a nutshell, being the master of revolution and reconstruction in one’s own country. This means holding fast to an independent position, rejecting dependence on others, using one’s own brains, believing in one’s own strength, displaying the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance, and thus solving one’s own problems for oneself on one’s own responsibility under all circumstances’.

Following Juche, North Korea’s leaders sought to create an internally self-reliant, independent state with an international persona that commands consideration disproportionate to its physical size or military and economic stature. Lankov argues, however, that Stalinism has gradually become ‘marginalized’ and ‘impotent’ in the DPRK (2006: 118). He claims that the centrally planned economy has disappeared, political control is undermined by unmonitored cross-border movements, and the ‘Military-first politics’ has marginalized other political institutions, even the Party (Hinata-Yamaguchi, 2011).

The DPRK possesses a formal civil and criminal legal system with the written constitution placed at the top of the hierarchy of laws. Enacted in 1948, the Constitution established the framework of the system in place today. In its original form, the Constitution of the DPRK was, not surprisingly, similar to those of other communist states; the state shall be a typical socialist ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ under the vanguard-style leadership of the Workers’ Party of Korea. Like many other communist constitutions, the law of the land often looks more like a political manifesto than rules of government (Yoon, 1997: 189).

As it stands today, the Constitution, most recently amended in 2009, is a ‘Kim Il Sung Constitution’, ³ legalizing Kim’s legacy and his Juche ideology. In theory, North Korea’s proletariat dictatorship, and ultimately its embodiment in the one-party and despotic dynasty of the Kim family, is a modern workers’ paradise (Sung, 2001). Like other communist state constitutions, the DPRK Constitution lists a number of civil rights that are superficially similar to those stated in the constitutions of liberal democratic states such as the freedom of speech, assembly, demonstration, religious beliefs, and the right to education, relaxation, and free and universal medical care. Under the principles of the Constitution, the people may even vote for and ‘elect’ their leader. For example, the North Koreans participated in the ‘re-election’ of Kim Jong-Il to the Supreme People’s Assembly on 8 March 2009. However, Kim Jong-Il was the only eligible contender for the seat. This paramount leader should control, on behalf of the people, the totality of the Party, the Military and the entire population through mandatory commands and ideological control, emanating from the leader and his constitution (Zhang and Li, 2008: 39).

In return for such rights, the DPRK Constitution imposes such significant duties upon citizens that any observer will keenly observe that this constitution is collectivist, and coercively so. Article 81 of Chapter 5 requires that ‘Citizens shall firmly safeguard the political and ideological unity and solidarity of the people. Citizens shall cherish their organization and collective and work devotedly for the good of society and the people’, and Article 85 of the same chapter lays down the duty of citizens to ‘constantly increase their revolutionary vigilance and devotedly fight for the security of the State’. Such duty-driven pronouncements abound in the text, directed at ordinary citizens and political functionaries alike who are, in such a totalizing state, often one and the same (LaFraniere, 2010). Taken together, the admonitions to duty and revolution create a unique set of institutional norms and rules at all political levels.

Institutional power sharing in North Korea

However surprising to outside observers of the regime, a thorough reading of the Constitution indicates no obvious references to the legalization of the personal rule of the Kim dynasty over the major institutions of government in the DPRK. Even following the constitutional reforms of 1998 and 2009, which clarified the status of the Chairman of the National Defense Commission as the ‘Supreme Leader’ of North Korea, the Dear Leader’s or the Great Successor’s policymaking, policy coordination, and institutional oversight power in non-military policy domains was not formalized, although his informal executive power is marked.

Under the constitutional amendment process and government restructuring program in 1998, which aimed to centralize government capacities under the pressures of globalization (Mansourov, 2006), more administrative responsibilities were devolved to the ministers (Babson, 2001). Mansourov (2006: 45) suggests that the reforms centralized the national bureaucracy, but loosened local government control, and delegated more responsibilities to local actors. However, as Jie (2000) argues, the delegation of responsibility in these reforms signified the creation of a compartmentalized department structure that effectively led to the centralization of executive power in Kim Jong-Il’s hands through intradepartmental competition. These reforms created new norms for the administration to increase its effectiveness, specifically the effectiveness of national policy implementation under Kim Jong-Il.

The three major political institutions under the Supreme Leader within the DPRK’s constitutional framework are ‘the State’ (overseen by the Supreme People’s Assembly and the Cabinet), ‘the Military’ (led by the National Defense Commission), and ‘the Party’ (headed by the Central Committee) (Scobell, 2006: 4). Although at present Kim Jong-Un has (at least) symbolic control over each of these – being simultaneously a four-star general and ‘Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army’, ‘General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea’, and ‘Vice Chairman of the Workers’ Party Central Military Commission’ – power and administrative responsibilities are shared, albeit unequally, among the three constellations of organizations (Moon, 2012).

The Cabinet, formed under the delegation of the Supreme People’s Assembly and the Supreme People’s Assembly Presidium, is ‘the administrative and executive body of the highest State power and organ of overall State administration’ (Article 123). Members of the Cabinet, appointees of the Supreme People’s Assembly, include the Premier, Vice-Premiers, Chairmen of the Commissions, Ministers and some other, unspecified ‘necessary members’. These cabinet ministers are politically relevant and very powerful actors, accountable not only to the party, but to the people. According to Zhang and Li (2008: 35), there are 33 ministries ⁴ under the leaders of the Cabinet and these ministers are responsible for the execution of the collective policy and administrative decisions of the Cabinet. The Constitution demands that the Cabinet devote virtually all of its efforts to the executive and management. Article 13 clarifies some of the principles of management such as, ‘the State shall implement the mass line and apply the Chongsanri spirit and Chongsanri method to all its activities, [Chongsanri is] the spirit and method by which superiors assist their subordinates, mix with the masses to find solutions to problems and rouse them to conscious enthusiasm preferentially through political work …’. In Article 7, and in line with the Chongsanri spirit, ‘Deputies to the organs of State power at all levels have close ties with their constituents and are accountable to them for their work. The electors may recall the deputies they have elected if the latter are not to be trusted.’ This power of recall is not limited to a small number of offices. Pursuant to Article 125, the Cabinet is responsible for the execution of state policy, regulation of state management, guidance of administrative and economic organs, dealing with the banking and economic systems, management of public and social order, and exercising public works in fields such as industry, agriculture, construction, city management, environmental protection, health and education, and foreign affairs. It is, therefore, arguable that the Constitution normatively empowers the Cabinet to act as the highest administrative office.

The administrative powers of North Korea include the major offices of the Cabinet along with strong, but internally competitive, central and local agencies. As set out in Article 125, the administrative agencies of the DPRK’s central government in Pyongyang encompass a wide range of ‘committees’, ‘ministries’, ‘direct Cabinet organs’, ‘administrative economic organizations’, ‘state management orders’ and ‘non-permanent departmental committees’ which, as Article 136 puts it, ought to ‘issue directions’ to the lower levels of government. To clarify this relationship, Articles 137 and 145 state that the local bodies of administration should be the Local People’s Assembly and Local People’s Committee. The Local People’s Assembly and the Local People’s Committee serve as the local administrative apparatus, issuing and interpreting national and local economic plans. The Local People’s Assembly is an elected body assigned the task of deciding on central economic plans and local plans and budgets. The Local People’s Committee functions while the Local People’s Assembly is in recess. The Local People’s Committee can call into session the Local People’s Assembly and carries out the necessary research and drafting of plans for the Local People’s Assembly.

Technically, the Constitution recognizes the significance of institutional cooperation, power distribution, and the limited autonomy of local governance, under the watchful guidance of the Supreme People’s Assembly. As Article 5 of the first chapter makes clear, ‘All State organs in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are formed and function on the principle of democratic centralism.’ According to Chapter 6, the state hierarchy consists of the Supreme People’s Assembly as the highest organ of state power and legislative power, the Chairman of the National Defense Commission as the supreme commander of the armed forces, the National Defense Commission as the highest organ of military and defensive power, the Cabinet as the highest administrative power, and the Local People’s Assembly as that arm responsible for regional affairs. According to Article 6, the Supreme People’s Assembly and Local People’s Assembly ought to be elected by universal, equal, and direct suffrage by secret ballot.

The problems of a competitive government structure, particularly one where the administrative departments are formally subordinate to a party and military apparatus that are similarly competitive with one another, and the proliferation of symbolic ranks and positions in the North Korean bureaucracy, complexify both public policymaking and administrative authority (Park, 2002: 89). The patterns known about in the North Korean government, such as the tendency to create ad hoc rather than solid legal solutions in times of difficulty, suggest that constitutionally grounded rules of institutional order may not prevail (Hoare and Pares, 2005: 16). What, then, does the Constitution say explicitly about public administrators in the DPRK? The Constitution does not provide for the creation of a professional or independent bureaucracy. Instead, in a fashion reminiscent of a Leninist state, it suggests fusing the roles of ‘democratically elected’ politicians and bureaucrats into the remit of the Cabinet or ‘the administrative and executive body of the highest State power and organ of overall State Administration’ (Chapter 4, Article 123). ‘The Commissions and Ministries of the Cabinet are departmental executive bodies of the Cabinet and central departmental bodies of administration’, designed to ‘supervise and guide the work of the sectors concerned in a uniform way under the guidance of the Cabinet’ (Chapter 4, Article 134). Those accountable to the Cabinet ‘adopt measures for the implementation of the State policies’, ‘establish or abolish organs directly under its authority, major administrative and economic bodies and enterprises, and adopt measures for improving State administration bodies’, ‘compile the State budget and adopt measures to implement it’, ‘organize and execute the work of industries, agriculture, construction, transport, communications, commerce, trade, land administration, protection of the environment, sightseeing, and so on’, ‘inspect and control the establishment of order in State administration’, ‘adopt measures to maintain public order, protect the property and interests of the State and social, cooperative organizations, and safeguard the rights of citizens’, and ‘rescind the decisions and directives of administrative and economic bodies which run counter to the decisions and directives of the Cabinet’ (Chapter 6, Article 125).

There are two concentrated sources of candidates for posts in the offices of the central bureaucracy – the Ministries and Commissions of the Cabinet – namely, the elite class and the career bureaucrat or technocrat. The descendants of the ideological elites – the old guards of Kim Il-Sung’s North Korea, who are exempted from the compulsory military service – are also granted (often automatically) higher offices (Becker, 2005). These elites together with others posted in the Party number about 1.5 million. They gain first priority for scarce food, housing and medical care, but their continued access comes from pleasing their many superiors (Oh and Hassig, 2003).

The officials below Cabinet level elites fill the 17-grade bureaucracy (Becker, 2005: 74). Individuals in the lower level bureaucracy are often technocrats with specialized knowledge in economics or engineering, often learned abroad, who are charged with the task of technical innovation (Armstrong, 2007). The DPRK largely depends on these technocrats in economic and technical issues. These managerial technocrats dominate the policy executive, enjoying privileged status as holders of information on the outside world (H.J. Kim, 2006). Importantly, individuals from these ranks have the opportunity to progress to higher-level jobs, including the Premiership. For instance, Kim Yong Il, the Premier of the DPRK (as of July 2008), toiled as a career bureaucrat for decades before being appointed by the Supreme People’s Assembly to this post.

North Korean bureaucrats’ extensive technocratic roles ought not be interpreted too widely to mean decision-making latitude. As functionaries in a democratically centralized state, they must ensure the complete execution of the will of the Supreme People’s Assembly and the maintenance of order. Apart from technical political-administrative tasks, implementation of the political and ideological responsibilities of Juche, ‘State building’ in the language of the Constitution, are the burden of the state’s administrative agencies. Article 10 of the chapter on ‘Politics’ is one example – it demands that state and society strengthen ‘the politico-ideological unity of all the people based on the worker-peasant alliance led by the working class’ and ‘revolutionize all the members of society, and assimilate them to the working class by intensifying the ideological revolution, and turn the whole of society into a collective, united in a comradely way’. The Constitution also stipulates that the Workers’ Party of Korea must lead all activities of the country and that all citizens should discharge their duties under its close supervision. Thus, it is likely that North Korean bureaucrats have to participate openly in the production and dissemination of Party propaganda, including the struggle against the imperialists, and the defense of the rights of the proletariats, possibly to the detriment of more conventional tasks such as promoting economic efficiency and management performance (Park, 2002).

Political controls and the DPRK bureaucracy

Article 32: In guiding and managing the socialist economy, the State shall firmly maintain the principle of correctly combining political guidance with economic and technological guidance, the unified guidance of the state with the initiative of each unit, unitary command with democracy, and political and moral incentives with material incentives.

To understand political control of the bureaucracy, insofar as politics and administration could be separated in a state like North Korea, it is important to recall that the Workers’ Party of Korea is the only legal ruling party, and all people must pledge absolute loyalty to the party and its leader. As Hoare and Pares (2005: 13) suggest, the actual principles of social and political organization are ‘based on the state’s perception of an individual’s loyalty to the leadership and of his or her family’s trustworthiness in an earlier generation’. The bureaucracy of North Korea forms a substantial part of the political structure, and party loyalists form a substantial part of the cadre of elite bureaucrats. Just as with the Military, the North Korean bureaucracy is a political institution. Although constitutional rules limit the powers of each arm of the polity, in the DPRK, the Military, the Party, and the bureaucracy cooperate under a significant set of informal rules shaping the true practices of politics under the ‘black letter law’ of the constitution. The relationship between these three arms may be best described as a triadic model of politics. Policy formulations emanate from the hands of the Dear Leader and his National Defense Commission; the Party and the Supreme People’s Assembly legitimizes them, and then the Cabinet and its bureaucrats shape and execute them. While the state leader wields enormous power, the Party, the army and the bureaucrats share responsibilities for interpreting, transmitting, and executing the policy directives from the top leadership, in a manner similar to other nations with a tradition of the separation of powers. After all, political rulers, however omnipotent they may seem, have limited physical and informational capacity to make and implement all the necessary policy choices (Gonzalez de Lara et al., 2008: 105).

Park (2002: 89) and Carlin and Wit (2006: 15) view the DPRK bureaucracy as an operational extension of the Party; every administrative unit has a Party representative mediating between the Party and the public administrators. Consonant with the practices of Stalinist democratic centralism, these Party representatives transmit policy directives from the Party, evaluate the performance of bureaucrats, and report to the central Party. While the administrators themselves must also report to the Party, this overlapping design of reporting follows a logic similar to the Chinese and Soviet Communist constitutions – separating the ‘Reds’ from the ‘Experts’. If rigorously imposed, such a policy would decompose the bureaucracy into a set of robotic servants in order to ensure the comprehensive control of the Party over administration. In practice, however, such servitude to the Party is not apparent.

Contrary to common stereotypes of Leninist regimes, the empirical evidence suggests that the Party in North Korea has become increasingly irrelevant. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of Kim Jong-Il’s regime has been the syphoning of power away from the Party towards the army (Gause, 2006: 7). Contradicting its own charter, the Party has not convened its plenary Party Congress since 1980. Smaller conferences have not occurred since Kim Il-Sung’s death, and it was not until September 2010 that a Party conference was called to legitimize Kim Jong-Un’s role as heir to the throne. As expected, deliberations within the Party have become ‘less and less substantive’ (Scobell, 2006: 20), and Party officials have been overtaken by military officers in official leadership rankings (Gause, 2006: 7).

Absent a clear constitutional mandate of external control and in the context of interference from the Military, the Party seems to be focusing lately on its capacity to enforce internal controls for bureaucrats, such as through ideological control. It is Kim Jung Il’s belief that the Cabinet and all its subordinate organizations are administrative organs, and that the Party should not oversee the policy directions of the bureaucracy (S.C. Kim, 2006). Instead, the Party should concentrate on maintaining the ‘organizational life’ of the bureaucrats, which means little more than lectures and study sessions on ideology and theories every week (S.C. Kim, 2006: 68).

The ‘dual bureaucratic’ structure of Military and Party influence in the bureaucracy originated from a perceived need to resolve the problems of power abuse and red tape, but was largely unsuccessful in eliminating the ‘corruption of bureaucraticism’ (Chon, 1994: 65). The influence of the Party and Party values could not overcome the influence of the Military and Military leadership on the bureaucracy. According to Linter (2005: 96), out of the 16 most senior leaders in the North Korean state, only two of them came from the Party, while the remaining majority hail from the armed forces.

The Military of North Korea possibly plays a more important role than the Party and the bureaucracy on the political stage of North Korea. The Military’s influence on politics and social organization is as ‘strong’ as the mission of the Military is wide (O’Hanlon and Mochizuki, 2003: 128). As stipulated in Chapter 4, Article 59 of the Constitution, ‘The mission of the armed forces of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is to safeguard the interests of the working people; to defend the socialist system and the gains of the revolution from aggression and to protect the freedom, independence and peace of the country.’ Given wide latitude and a substantial share of the nation’s resources, the 1 million troops and 6 million reserves of the Korean People’s Army have become the dominant social and political institution (Oh and Hassig, 2003).

In a move interpreted as a way of consolidating his power, Kim Jong-Il replaced the Party with the armed forces as the most important government organ. Even though the Party grants continued legitimacy to the National Defense Commission by passing pre-decided laws, the Commission, made up of the top elite of North Korea, is the de facto supreme power of state following the constitutional revisions. This is precisely what the DPRK calls ‘Military-first politics’, which gives top policy preference to the needs of the armed forces.

Kim Jong-Il has in recent years transformed Juche from a nationalistic ruling ideology into a cult of military and economic performance. Through a gradual process of power consolidation and institutional change, the DPRK now practices the new politics of Kangsongdaeguk (‘a militarily strong and economically prosperous nation’) more than Juche (Jie, 2000: 774; I.J. Kim, 2006: 63; Paik, 2006: 37). The 2009 constitutional amendment has also replaced ‘communism’ with Kim Jong-Il’s ‘Military-first’ idea. Together, these rendered the original ideology less important for formulating and implementing policies. With its paramount leader being the head of the top armed forces committee, military participation in politics, including bureaucratic supervision, is necessarily more dominant than Party influence. The National Defense Commission, instead of the Cabinet or the Party, now appears to be the real executive of the government – the ‘brain’ of the State itself.

The direct interaction between the bureaucracy and the Military is undoubtedly far more extensive than in most states in the world. Under this abnormal system, the DPRK bureaucracy could hardly stay uninvolved in the political dealings and struggles between the Military and the Party. The tensions beginning in the late 1990s and early 2000s that stemmed from Kim Jong-Il’s replacement of traditional factions in the Party and administration by new military loyalists, have not yet been resolved (I.J. Kim, 2006: 73). Bureaucratic reformers have little choice but to convince skeptical military leaders that change will not undermine national security (O’Hanlon and Mochizuki, 2003).

The so-called ‘Military-first idea’ is probably a hybrid of formalistic and competitive models (S.C. Kim, 2006: 102). Formally, the military dominates and gathers information from the bureaucracy’s state police, the Party and the Korean People’s Army. At the same time, these organizations are formally independent from each other, are not coordinated in the processes of policy development and implementation, and thus often compete for the same ends, leading to potential instability in the regime. As Jie (2000: 775) suggests,

Should the balancer (Kim Jong-Il) disappear from the political scene – perhaps because of an accident, illness or for any other reason – the delicate balance will eventually be broken down. Once that happens, Pyongyang’s power circle may slide into a centrifugal spiral. Not only would all the latent cleavages come to the surface, new factions might arise as well, feeding on the renewed political uncertainties. Factionalization would eventually lead to intense power struggles among the various rivalries, followed by anarchy and even the collapse of the regime. In particular, a clash between the party and the army or among military commanders could result in bloody consequences fatal to the regime.

Given the unstable and acrimonious relationship between the three major power players, it is unclear how, in the event of a national crisis of transition, the North Korean public administration would be able to fill the role Rohr (1986: 88, 181–186; 1988) suggests American public administrators might – carriers of the values important to continuity of the regime. Instead, it appears that this role may fall to the Military in this ‘Military-first’ regime.

Studying public administration in closed nations

In closed nations, such as the DPRK, where objective evidence of bureaucratic behavior is limited, an analysis of the Constitution may be the only step available for predicting bureaucratic practices. In the case of North Korean public administration, what is essential to bear in mind is that the ‘regime values’, in this case Stalinism and Juche, shape the character of administration in the nation. Administrators from ‘outside’ nations, whether Asian or Western, should expect patterns of behavior consonant with the values of democratic centralism, one-party (one-man, rather) control, military dominance, and an emphasis on self-reliance when dealing with their North Korean counterparts. For example, administrators may be able to discuss implementation alternatives in some policy domains, but may be hamstrung by central decision-makers’ rules in others. Also, outside administrators may find that access is denied on the basis of ideological decisions made far from the sources of needs. For example, depending on the level of real or perceived hostilities between the US and the DPRK, organizations and their administrators may find the Military-first policy, Military–Party wrangling, and associated rhetoric to be a source of frustration (Koh, 1998).

Our analysis seems to generate mixed blessings for the generalizability of the constitutional perspective. Spicer and Terry (1993: 244–245) suggest that bureaucratic discretion may be justified constitutionally if it is used as a check against the failures of a nation’s leader and if such discretion is politically constrained so that it is not used arbitrarily. Bertelli and Lynn (2006: 141–147) suggest that bureaucratic discretion is justified if it is inspired by the Madisonian values of judgment, balance, rationality, and accountability. Such arguments are certainly justified according to their study of the logic of the American Constitution. However, the insistence that bureaucratic power needs to be constrained by democratic processes is a uniquely American suggestion. As seen in the above analysis, the bureaucracy may itself constrain and serve as a check against the vagaries of a powerful military and the party apparatus. Thus, attempts to generalize Constitutional analysis must be done judiciously and in context.

As mentioned in earlier sections, however, the constitution may provide helpful analytical starting points for subsequent study. One profitable direction for future research would be to examine how non-military agency administrators in the DPRK interact with their military counterparts when implementing public-good provision services, such as infrastructure projects. Our analysis of the constitutional principles for administrative action, such as Juche and songun jeongchi (Military-first), invites future scholars to re-examine how principles-in-practice, such as the Chongsanri spirit, fit into this constitutional system.

What might the above analysis tell outside administrators about reasonable expectations of the government of Kim Jong-Un? The news reports from the Hermit Kingdom suggest that Kim Jong-Un will be under the tutelage of ‘old guard’ members of Kim Jong-Il’s inner circle for the foreseeable future. Reports suggest that the Great Successor will not, in a similar vein to his father Kim Jong-Il, deviate from the policies of his predecessors (Choe, 2012). Within these same reports, notably the most recent reports of the failed launch of the weather satellite (Unha-3 rocket), the ‘Military-first’ policy was strongly reiterated, suggesting little change in regime values (McCurry, 2012). The shadow leadership of the country by old-guard political leaders and military generals also suggests that a major modification to the ‘Kim Il-Sung Constitution’ is unlikely in the near term as these individuals may be reluctant to modify their present power positions significantly. Although scholars of public administration and politics have few ways of verifying the type and degree of political reorganization that has transpired since the passing of Kim Jong-Il, we hope we have made a case to show how scholars interested in public administration in the DPRK may use the enduring sources of values in the DPRK, such as the nation’s Constitution, to develop systematic analyses of this enigmatic nation.