It is unusual for North Korea, a closed personalist dictatorship, to preserve powerand regime through hereditary succession. North Korea has survived in the midst of theglobal democratization movements and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Itendured a substantial economic and human security threat posed by the Great Famine inthe mid-1990s and is withstanding economic sanctions imposed by the internationalcommunity. The narrative of three North Korean rulers (Kim’s Family) is beyondconveying personal thoughts; it has been serving as the tool for legitimacy claim tolegitimize the governing power and the regime. This study utilizes text-mining oftopic-modeling on 2,062 speeches, orations, statements, and letters addressed by thethree rulers of North Korea from 1930 to early 2019 to provide time series analysis onhow the seven sources of North Korean regime legitimacy have changed over the periodand further contributed to the regime survival.The introduction explains the research background, purpose, and summaryderived from the fundamental question on the North Korean regime's survival. Chapter 2examines preceding studies on regime legitimacy as a variance to analyze North Korea'sregime survival. Furthermore, this section explores the definition and function oflegitimacy, and categorizes the seven sources of legitimacy claim that North Koreanrulers have been relying on, namely, (1) National Foundation Medal, (2) ruling ideology,(3) nationalism, (4) personalism, (5) performance, (6) international engagement, and (7)formal institution. The honoring system of the National Foundation Medal encouragespeople to devote themselves to the state where the ruling ideology serves to fomentnational consciousness that garners public support for the regime by providing normsand defining public interests. Nationalism legitimizes state behaviors and goals, whereaspersonalism stems from extraordinary personality by emphasizing qualifications as aleader. Performance-based legitimacy could be generated from public interests, andinternational engagement that promotes better positioning in international relations couldbolster legitimacy. Lastly, the formal institution ensures that every action taken by theregime has a legal basis. Chapter 3 introduces previous research on North Korea basedon text-mining as well as limitations of quantitative research. This section alsoillustrates the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic-modeling and its application tothis research. Chapter 4 presents the result of the overall analysis of the texts fromKim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un, which extracted 16 topics to demonstratethe changes in seven sources of legitimacy claim over time. The research confirmed thatthe rulers respond to challenges to regime survival by intentionally changing the sourcesof legitimacy claim. Chapter 5 analyzes the texts of each ruler and suggests that thenumber and application of legitimacy claim sources reduced through hereditarysuccession. The analysis in chapters 4 and 5 affirms that Kim Il-Sung used varioussources of legitimacy claims to respond to crises he faced at different times. As asuccessor, Kim Jong-il employed personalism to legitimize his succession and utilizedruling ideology to overcome the economic crisis during the Great Famine. In contrast,Kim Jong-un has been focusing on personalism by emphasizing the direct lineage toKim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il to legitimize his leadership. Chapter 6 applies wordassociation analysis to confirm that the sources and legitimacy claims alter.All three North Korean rulers claimed legitimacy by changing sources toovercome the challenges that threatened the regime and power preservation. Kim Il-sungused the legitimacy of nation-building to overcome crises and further developed manyother sources of legitimacy. In Kim Jong-il era, he overcame the threats to the regimeduring the Great Famine and changed the source of legitimacy by shifting the rulingideology towards putting a greater emphasis on national security and military-firstpolicy. Personalism under Kim Jong-un has embodied all other sources of legitimacyowing to the fact that the number of sources to be utilized has significantly decreasedin the course of his father's and his succession. All things considered, each of KimIl-sung, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un's legitimacy claim could be characterized as thenational foundation, national security, and direct lineage to the founding father.After the liberation from Japanese colonialism, Kim Il-sung emphasizednationalism to mobilize individuals, highlighting his achievement of national foundation asa source of regime legitimacy. He set forth military and ruling ideology to legitimize theKorean War as a war against U.S. imperialism and to encourage military mobilization.In the post-war period, Kim Il-sung relied on formal institutions to seize control overKorean Workers' Party (KWP) and performance to garner domestic support, ultimatelyaiming to concretize his position as the only power of the Party. Ruling ideology calledJuche had been mainly employed until the socialist constitution was enacted. Facing thethreats posed by China and the Soviet Union changing course, he utilized internationalengagement by establishing a bilateral relationship with Western states and non-alignedstates to promote regime stability of North Korea. Along with international engagement,Kim Il-sung used ruling ideology to draw domestic support for the regime.Kim Jong-il relied upon the ruling ideology that stemmed from his fatherduring the transition period. Following the death of Kim Il-sung, he emphasized hisfather's achievements to legitimize his authority, which could be seen as the utilizationof personalism for legitimacy. At the time of the Great Famine, economic growth couldno longer encourage performance-based legitimacy, and Kim Jong-il had to incorporatenational security and military-first ideology into ruling ideology. Kim Jong-il was ableto rely more on performance-based legitimacy after the Great Famine as public interestwas successfully shifted away from economic growth to national security and theestablishment of a strong socialist country. Nevertheless, Kim Jong-il never abrogatedJuche ideology, the ruling ideology that was transcended from his father.Kim Jong-un had a relatively short transition period after Kim Jong-il's abruptdeath and tended to rely more heavily on the legitimacy that stemmed from hispredecessors. Personalism came to embody bloodline, and ruling ideology became KimIlsung-Kim Jongilism, which aims to build a powerful socialist country referring to thelegacies of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. Criteria of the leadership's performancechanged to Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il's love towards North Korean citizens.Sanctions imposed by the international society have been impeding North Korea'seconomic growth. Public service delivery and leadership's affection and care for itspeople have thereby been the only criterion that North Korean citizens could utilize toevaluate the regime's performance. The current study sees that Kim Jong-un's use offormal institution intends to tighten the control over the Party rather than bolstering thelegitimacy of his leadership.Several characteristics could be found over the course of North Korean regimetransition, which could be summarized as altering the sources of regime legitimacy.First, as the regime went through hereditary succession, fewer sources of legitimacyclaim became available for the successor. Kim Il-sung had various sources of legitimacyas a founding power, which enabled him to respond flexibly to the challenges that theregime faced. Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un, being the successors of Kim Il-sung, wererefrained from developing new sources of legitimacy. Second, the reliance on thefounding father Kim Il-sung became stronger through hereditary succession. KimJong-un replaced Juche and military-first ideology with Kim Ilsung-Kim Jongilism,using the achievements and history of his predecessors to legitimize the regime. Third,nationalism, an ideology that authoritarian states mainly rest upon, lost its power as asource of regime legitimacy while the generations changed. Albeit the word minjok(nation) in the Kim Il-sung era referred to both the northern and southern parts of theKorean peninsula, Kim Jong-un uses this terminology only to refer to the NorthKoreans, and gyeore (ethnically homogenous people) or dongpo (compatriot) emerged toaddress the South Koreans. Fourth, it is worth noting that the regime has maintainedits power by altering the ruling ideology, which affects the criteria that the NorthKorean public uses when evaluating the regime's performance. Amid the changes in thesocialist bloc, Kim Il-sung developed the self-reliance ideology of Juche to consolidatehis power, which enabled him to maintain the regime against the collapse of thecommunist regimes around the world. Similarly, Kim Jong-il successfully incorporatedthe concept of military-first into the ruling ideology in the wake of the Great Famine,shifting the public attention from economic growth to national security. Under strongeconomic sanctions imposed upon the regime, Kim Jong-un has been relying on theruling ideology of Kim Ilsung-Kim Jongilism to highlight the leadership's affection forthe people, emphasizing the public service delivery as the foremost important evaluationcriterion of regime performance. Finally, evidence of North Korea relying on formalinstitutions to increase regime legitimacy, a standardized characteristic of a normalsocialist state, was absent.
폐쇄적인 사인주의 체제인 북한이 혈연 승계를 통해 권력과 체제를 유지하는 것은 매우 드문 현상이다. 북한은 국제적인 변화와 국내 환경의 변화와 위기에도 불구하고 김일성 일가의 개인 지배 체제를 지속하고 있다. 본 연구는 북한의 김일성, 김정일, 김정은이 체제와 권력을 유지하기 위해 사용하는 방법 중 정당성 주장에 주목한다. 북한의 3대 통치자의 텍스트는 그 자신의 개인적인 생각을 전달하는 것을 넘어 체제와 통치 권력이 정당하다고 인민에게 주장하는 정당성 주장의 도구이다. 1930년부터 2019년 상반기까지 김일성, 김정일, 김정은의 2,062개의 연설, 담화, 논문, 서신 등 텍스트에 대해 텍스트마이닝 기법을 사용했다. 특히 LDA 토픽모델링 기법을 사용하여 정당성 주장의 7가지 원천들-국가건설, 통치 이데올로기, 정체성의 이데올로기인 민족주의, 개인적 특성, 퍼포먼스, 국제적 확대, 제도-의 변화를 시계열로 분석하여 북한 체제와 권력의 지속을 설명한다. 북한의 3대 통치자는 체제와 권력을 유지에 위협이 되는 위기들을 극복하기 위해 원천들을 변경하여 정당성을 주장했다. 김일성은 국가건설이라는 업적의 정당성을 기반으로 다양한 정당성 주장의 원천을 개발하고 활용하여 국내와 국제적 위기들에 적극적으로 대응하여 체제와 권력을 지켜냈다. 승계 권력인 김정일은 고난의 행군이라는 경제적 위기로 처하게 된 체제와 권력 위기를 극복하기 위해 통치 이데올로기를 선군, 국가안보로 변경하여 국가와 인민의 공적 이해가 국가안보임을 강조하여 인민으로부터의 통치자의 정당성 평가 기준, 퍼포먼스 기준을 바꾸어 체제와 권력을 유지할 수 있었다. 김정은은 3대째 승계를 거치며 권력 정당성 자원이 매우 줄어들었다. 김일성과 김정일의 혈통이라는 유전적 요소를 통치자의 자질로 변경한 개인적 특성 정당성 주장을 강화하여 다른 정당성 주장의 원천들을 모두 흡수했다. 통치 이데올로기로 김일성-김정일주의로 변경하여 퍼포먼스 정당성의 기준을 김일성과 김정일이 보여준 인민 사랑인 공적 서비스 제공으로 설정하여 현재의 통치 권력을 지속하고 있다. 이를 통해 김일성은 국가건설의 업적 정당성, 김정일은 국가안보, 김정은은 혈통적 자질로 각각의 정당성 주장의 특성을 설명할 수 있다.북한 3대 통치자가 위기에 대처하며 정당성 원천을 변화시키는 과정에서 몇 가지 특징을 발견할 수 있었다. 첫째, 혈연 승계 권력이 지속될수록 활용 가능한 정당성 주장 원천이 줄어들었다는 것이다. 이 때문에 김정은으로 이어지면서 통치 이데올로기와 개인적 특성 정당성 주장에 대한 의존이 매우 증가했다. 둘째, 김일성 선대에의 정당성 의존은 개인적 특성 원천이 일상화되는 것이 아니라 혈연 승계를 통해 더 강화하고 있음을 보여준다. 김정은은 김일성-김정일주의로 주체사상과 선군사상을 대체했다. 김일성과 김정일 선대의 업적과 역사를 자신의 정당성 주장으로 삼으면서 전면에서 사용되고 있다. 셋째, 권위주의 국가에서 주로 사용하는 정체성의 이데올로기인 민족주의는 세대가 변하면서 정당성 주장의 원천으로 힘을 잃었다. 민족 개념이 남북한에서 북한 인민들로 재정의되었고 김정은은 민족보다 애국주의로 인민 동원의 정당성을 주장하고 있다. 넷째, 통치 이데올로기의 변화를 통해 인민의 퍼포먼스 정당성 평가 기준을 바꾸며 권력을 유지하고 있다는 점이 체제와 권력 유지의 가장 중요한 요소로 확인되었다. 사회주의 진영의 변화 속에 김일성은 자신만의 주체사상을 만들어 북한의 일인 권력 체제를 견고하게 했으며, 그 덕분에 공산권이 붕괴하는 상황에서 체제를 유지할 수 있었다. 김정일은 고난의 행군을 겪으며 통치 이데올로기를 선군으로 변경하여 퍼포먼스 정당성 주장을 경제적 조건이 아닌 국가안보로 공적 이해를 변경시켰다. 김정은은 강력한 경제제재라는 환경과 짧은 승계 기간의 어려움에서 통치 이데올로기를 김일성-김정일주의로 삼아 부족한 권력 자원을 방어했다. 김일성-김정일주의 통치 이데올로기를 기반으로 인민에 대한 사랑을 퍼포먼스 정당성의 기준으로 바꾸어 국가와 통치자의 역할을 공적 서비스 제공으로 국가와 통치자의 영역을 한정했다. 마지막으로 아직 북한이 사회주의 정상국가의 기준이 되는 당 제도에 의존하는 변화를 발견할 수는 없었다.90년 동안 북한 통치자들의 텍스트에 대한 토픽모델링 기법을 적용해 북한 체제와 권력이 생존할 수 있었던 이유를 정당성 주장의 변화로 설명하여 북한을 이해하는데 도움을 줄 것이다.