In short, all of the features of political activities,including public policies and institutions, are intrinsically resistant to change. Furthermore, the policies set up in the past and the history of such policy-making tend to affect subsequent decision making processes and policy outcomes significantly, even after the original conditions that gave rise to the need for those particular policies or institutions have changed. If decision maker cannot escape the existing and policy framework or legacy the autonomy of decision makers is considerably constrained. The choices and preferences of decision maker as well as multiple societal powers are significantly limited and constrained by the institutionalized norms of such decision making processes. According to this logic, institutional or policy frameworks constructed in the past influence the institutional and policy choice of the decision maker of today, and will continue to do so into the future. In this respect, the policies implemented in the past can be regarded as a shackle, setting limits to the range of choice for the present and future decision maker.
It is clear that path dependence theory can provide a highly useful analytical framework for understanding why the new North Korean regime has failed to introduce the anticipated change and why old policies and ideologies persist, even though the regime evidently understands that the status quo cannot save the country and the regime itself altogether. Obviously, the status quo is closely associated with the longstanding binding forces of the old policies and ideologies on the present regime. Therefore, in order to understand why the policy inertia or status quo continues in North Korea despite the recent power transfer, it is necessary to examine the original political and ideological legacies that have determined and reinforced the particular path of the country’s political and socioeconomic development. Accordingly, the following section focuses on the three most powerful political and ideological legacies of the North Korean regime the monolithic system, Juche ideology, and the military first policy which still exert great influence upon the political process in North Korea.
Ideological Legacies of the North Korean Regime
The monolithic system and Juche ideology
The legitimacy of North Korea’s hereditary power succession is baesd on its unique political system, the so called monolithic. A number of studies have been written on the characteristics of North Korea’s political system but no broad consensus on the subject has been reached. Some call it a corporatist state; others describe it as a fascist state system, a theocratic state system or a neo totalitarian state system. All of these arguments, however, point to one thing in common unlike all other communist countries, North Korea has established and maintained a monolithic system, which has played a crucial role in enabling the continuing monopoly of power by a sole leader and facilitating the hereditary succession of power from Kim Il-sung to his son and then to his grandson.
This monolithic system has the following features. First, it exhibits the highest level of power concentration in the hands of one individual. Under the monolithic system, social revolution and construction are carried out based solely on the ideology of the suryeong and at his command and direction; the political party, the people and the whole nation act as one body under the guidance of the suryeong. Accordingly, the suryeong himself is at the apex or core of the system. Following the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994, his son, Kim Jong-li on the role of suryeong, and since the death of Kim Jong-li in 2011, his son, Kim Jong-Un, has taken on that role. Second,under the monolithic system, the whole society is mobilised and militarized with the aim of replicating the power of the suryeong. The suryeong drives his country towards a militaristic, communist “ideal’’ by enforcing the routine instillation of the military spirit at all times and at all levels of society. Third, under the monolithic system, a discourse to rationalize the power of the suryeong is developed along with a wide range of social organizations to reproduce the patterns of the suryeong’s behavious. Finally, the monolithic system is usually accompanied by a cult of personality. This includes exaggerated compliment directed at the suryeong’s genius and achievements, the dissemination of moral tales featuring the suryeong through the media and school education, the preservation of sites associated with the suryeong’s activities, and the marking of the leader’s birthdays as the country’s most important national holidays.
The construction of the monolithic system started in earnest in the 1960s when the purge of all Kim Il-sung’s opponents was completed and Juche ideology came to the fore as a political ideology to facilitate the establishment of the monolithic system. Juche literally means the “main body”, “subject”, “independent stand” or “spirit of self-reliance”. It was originally developed as a political slogan to symbolize North Korea’s rejection of the Soviet Union’s policy of de-Stalinisation in the mid-1950s. In a speech delivered in April 1965, Kim Il-sung (1965) outlined the three fundamental principles of Juche “independence in politics” (jaju), “self-sufficiency in the economy” (jarip),and “self-reliance in national” (jawi). He thus implied that the North Korean people must have independence in thought and politics, economic self-sufficiency, and self-reliance in defence, and that state policy must reflect the will of the masses. In this respect, the concept of Juche is apparently akin to a human-oriented philosophy. It soon developed into a system that decreed that the masses, in order to fulfil their duty, must submit to the duidance of the suryeong. In this way, a human-oriented philosophy was systematically converted into a suryeong-oriented philosophy,which later became a crucial part of “kimilsungism”.
In 1986, the theory of the “sociopolitical organism” was developed and added to the Juche ideology; according to this theory, the suryeong, the ruling party and the masses are one organic body, with the suryeong representing the brain. This theory was further develop into the “blood” theory, whereby ideological foundations were provided for the construction of an organic system, in which the party, the whole nation and the masses act as one body in accordance with the suryuong’s directions. In 1992, the Juche concept’s remaining connections to Marxism were completely removed from the North Korean Constitution, and Juche was elevated to the status of a kind of religious and moral system, which ultimately defined the purpose of people’s lives, thereby providing the ideological justification for the hereditary succession of power from Kim Il-sung to his son, Kim Jong-li, and then to his grandson, Kim Jong-un. North Korea thus possesses all of the characteristics of a monolithic system, with Juche being developed as a logical tool to rationalize it.