How long do you think the DPRK is going to exist for?

[RedRalph]

It seems to me that nothing at all suggests it is liable to dissapear any time soon. Of course there is no telling the future, and Apartheid SA, the Shah and Mubarak all vanished with little warning, but does anyone seriously expect the DPRK to collapse any time soon? It seems pretty stable to me.

 

[Rulle_Kebab]

Forever I hope!
Long live The Great Successor!

 

[Murky]

Probably until climate change prevents China from propping up their government. Most of the foreign aid will dry up when there are food and water shortages in neighboring regions. Any country with a strictly isolationist policy is going to be hit the hardest.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

The population in deed seems to be kept under the thumb very well.
If NK collapses any time soon, then only because the top triggers it I fear.
For instance through a power struggle caused by radically different view points/interests, as in the SU. But for that I see no indications either, so far everybody seems perfectly happy with the status quo.
Another possibility is that by employing intensive free market reforms the regime would create a new middle class which then could be a source of change. But the regime seems to be aware of that danger as it allows change only at a very slow pace - so to keep everything under control.
Maybe we will have to wait for the current elite to die until fresh air gets into the corners of power.
Or we will have to wait until its slow reforms accumulate so something meaningful which empowers the people enough to make them aware of the failures of their government.

All in all North Korea seems to have in deed managed to create a system were stability is the only one prime concern and everything else comes second. Bad for the people, good for the status quo.

 

[Traitorfish]

I expect a change of name, flag, and iconography before too long- their choice is increasingly between a rentier-state and an unmanageable shambles, and it's hard to run the former while nattering on about imperialism all the time. Whether the regime actually changes, though, is anyone's guess.

 

[bathsheba666]

If we want them to collapse, history suggests the fastest route would be for the west to back and supply them with arms.

 

[ArneHD]

Hopefully it will be sometime soon.

 

[Tahuti]

Of course there is no telling the future, and Apartheid SA, the Shah and Mubarak all vanished with little warning, but does anyone seriously expect the DPRK to collapse any time soon? It seems pretty stable to me.

Well, I don't think the North Korean people are even capable of thinking to overthrow the regime: It's almost as Oceania is depicted in 1984. The Apartheid régime, the Shah and Mubarak all had some severe problems in their power base: The Apartheid régime worked actively against South Africa's blacks even though they were the majority, the Shah and Mubarak all had a relatively potent opposition that just had to be triggered at the right moment. The DPRK doesn't seem to have these problems.
The most likely scenario is that the military overthrows Kim Jung-Un and installs a Pinochet-esque régime which for North Korean standards would be an improvement. However, it would be nearly impossible to get any legitimacy from the common folk and right now they do not seem to have any interest in doing so either, so they'd would be morons to do that.

 

[Traitorfish]

The most likely scenario is that the military overthrows Kim Jung-Un and installs a Pinochet-esque régime which for North Korean standards would be an improvement. However, it would be nearly impossible to get any legitimacy from the common folk and right now they do not seem to have any interest in doing so either, so they'd would be morons to do that.

Does the DPRK have meaningful popular legitimacy at the moment?

 

[Cutlass]

Does the DPRK have meaningful popular legitimacy at the moment?

That can be manufactured. You have a society that is sufficiently issolated from the rest of the world so that there is no competing "truth", and you can get a defacto popular legitimacy simply because the public doesn't have a basis for disputing the party line.

What we need is to smuggle in a few million smartphones so that the public can find out what the rest of the world is up to, and organize among themselves.

 

[GoodGame]

As long as the 2nd Egyptian Dynasty. /joke


I think Sill summed it up....as long as people value the status quo more than themselves then their government will persist.

Seriously, about 10 more years. It might experience "rebirth" under a military junta, but I bet 10 years more. As long as South Korea and the world maintain pressure on the regime, they will eventually screw up

 

[Tahuti]

Does the DPRK have meaningful popular legitimacy at the moment?

None on the international stage, but that's pretty irrelevant provided it doesn't lead to war. As Cutlass implied, popular legitimacy of the DPRK's status quo is pretty much carved into the minds of North Koreans and will probably persist, even after the ones responsible are overthrown, should that ever happen.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

Hopefully, longer than every evil capitalist here who wishes N. Koreans something bad.

 

[RedRalph]

I expect a change of name, flag, and iconography before too long

Eh? Why do you expect that?

 

[Traitorfish]

Eh? Why do you expect that?

The only real option for the North Korean elite is to start renting out their labour-force to foreign capital and I can't see that being possible even within the ideological confines of Juche or the political limits of the current leadership (the two of which can't really be separated from each other). They've already made a few attempts to move in that direction- the most recent is the Rajin-Sonbong Economic Special Zone in the far North-East, which is open to China and Russia- but attempts have been limited by a reasonable wariness of investing in the territory of a schizophrenic despotate.

But, I could be wrong. As you said, these things are unpredictable.

 

[RedRalph]

I'd be surprised if they ever do anything that suggests at the instability or impermenance of the state, and changing flags and so on would do that. I see no reason why they would, they have long ago abandoned the principles those symbols stand for anyway.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'd be surprised if they ever do anything that suggests at the instability or impermenance of the state, and changing flags and so on would do that.

Well, there'd certainly need to be some sort of staged revolution to accompany the coup, with enough in the way of improved living standards, civil liberties and consumer "freedom" to validate it. Think "1688 with Korean characteristics".

I see no reason why they would, they have long ago abandoned the principles those symbols stand for anyway.

The ideology still provides an institutional logic for the state, and that has limits. If the actual working of the state and economy drifts too far from its nominal form- regardless of the validity of the theoretical model in the first place- it becomes difficult to maintain its proper function. Even bureaucrats can only stand so much cognitive dissonance! That's why the Chinese have been forced to undertake such marvellous ideological gymnastics in the last forty years,rather than just lying straight through their teeth. Granted, referencing China also suggests the possibility of retaining certain nominal ideological far beyond what seems reasonable, but I guess a lot of this is based on my impression of the current North Korean state, and the incompatibility of Juche and the Kims with meaningful reform.

 

[RedRalph]

I suspect you massively underestimate how pragmatic states like those (and many others) can be when it suits them. Why risk changing the symbols? The public won't be affected by them and there is no political discourse so it's not like anyone is going to complain.

 

[Traitorfish]

It's not even about the general public, it's about the state apparatus itself. All institutions have a certain internal logic, and even though there's plenty of room for dissonance between the official truth and the understood reality, it has limits. Either real reform is limited, or the institutional logic is reformed such that it can remain functioning, and if reform is necessary, then the latter is the only option. (China represents an example of success, the fSU, I think, an example of failure.) This is impressionistic, granted, but I'm sceptical of the ideological flexibility of Juche-Songun and of the ability of the current rulers to handle such ideological reforms, so the only way I can see any sort of political reform happening is with a pretty major ideological shift. Perhaps we'll see a Deng Xiaoping emerging, some individual or faction that guide the DPRK through a middle path, but I don't think it's likely.

 

[Tahuti]

Perhaps we'll see a Deng Xiaoping emerging, some individual or faction that guide the DPRK through a middle path, but I don't think it's likely.

A North Korean Deng Xiaoping is a best case scenario that is almost too good to be true.