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Going Beyond by First Going Within: New Approaches to North Korean Politics and Security

A couple of years ago a review article appeared in International Security by David Kang titled “They Think They’re Normal: Enduring Questions and New Research on North Korea.”1 Kang was the first to accurately identify a shift in contemporary research on North Korea. We are starting to perceive that the government and the people of the DPRK see themselves as normal. When I read the article, my first thought was to change the title. He should have called it “We Did Not Think They Were Normal.” But this shows differences in our disciplinary training rather than any disagreement in our observations. Kang is a political scientist and international relations scholar; I am an anthropologist. I wanted the title to challenge subjectivity a bit further: we have perceived the country as abnormal, irrational, and freakish; and, in perceiving the country as such, we have a priori faulted the very policies, research, and disengagements designed to help matters. So, it is with satisfaction that I read the three books for this review essay and discovered that these texts do challenge our typical approach to North Korea by examining the government, politics, and foreign relations from the inside out. They go beyond by first going within. Each book in this review examines matters from atypical points of view, and what is additionally refreshing is that they emerge from Asia, the United States, and Europe, respectively, and demonstrate a confluence of approaches to North Korea. Writing from Yonsei University, Yongho Kim’s North Korean Foreign