Kim Jong Il has died

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Osama bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi and now him.

2011 has been quite the year.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What, is the funeral going to resemble Dude Fest or something?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The reason why discussion of North Korea has a tendency to be so uninspiring is because almost all of it is contingent on an assumption about the country that, while embedded in the popular imagination, has been inaccurate since Kim Il-sung began preparing for his own succession by introducing Kim Jong-il onto the political scene.  Kim Il-sung reached the apogee of his power -- becoming the embodiment of the country in a way that no other Communist contemporary had ever managed to achieve -- at or near the time that he made a revision to the constitution elevating himself to the position of President and significantly altered the government structure to consolidate the party's supremacy.  While Kim Il-Sung theoretically retained absolute power over the state until his death, he proceeded to incrementally delegate the burden of his role elsewhere, secure in the knowledge that his authority was unassailable and he could countermand any decision brought to his attention that he objected to.  When he declared on his grand tour of Moscow in 1984 that it would be his last foreign journey and from then on his son would take his place, Kim Il-sung was indicating a desire to reduce his presence in the country's political system, as to do otherwise would imperil its viability after his passing.  The amelioration of Kim Il-sung's role, in the sense that the D.P.R.K. was capable of functioning independent of his control, accelerated an organic dispersion of power that Kim Jong-il would never have been able to undo even if he had wanted to wholly emulate his father.  

I doubt it's a coincidence that, as the government underwent what some interpreted as a generational transition in 1980 to denote Kim Jong-il's public unveiling -- a more subtle variant on the theme has also been carried out since 2009 to facilitate Kim Jong-un's ascent -- state policy encountered its first contradiction.  In the fall of 1983, Deng Xiaoping relayed to the Reagan administration that the North had abandoned its precondition that the Chun Doo-hwan regime be replaced before starting a dialogue with the South; China wanted America to commit to a three-way diplomatic initiative, effectively mediating between the North and South as the Carter administration had once entertained.  Immediately after Deng's personal overture, however, the North carried out its attempt to assassinate Chun in Rangoon, infuriating Deng and leading the ideologically sympathetic Chinese media to reject the North's protestations of innocence.  North Korea then continued to reiterate its interest in the proposal, suggesting that its desire for dialogue had been genuine.  

The incongruity of a state purportedly subject to the whims of one individual engaging in acts that are fundamentally incompatible with each other was not confined to the period of Kim Jong-il's succession, but has recurred again, most notably in June of both 1999 and 2002.  It's why, after the Yeonpyeong incident last year, I mentioned here that there was a chance the military might have been acting of its own volition as a way to illustrate its influence to the Kim family -- because, however implausible, it would not have been unprecedented.  Similarly, in Don Oberdorfer's 'The Two Koreas', Kim Il-sung is portrayed as being completely unaware of the eviction of the last two IAEA inspectors from the Yongbyon nuclear facility during his summit with President Carter in 1994.  He swiftly ruled they should remain when informed about the situation, but even the most sensitive policy decisions were being made without consulting Kim Il-sung by that time, underlining Kim Jong-il's involvement, a bureaucracy -- either party or cabinet -- that had taken on a character of its own, or both.

Kim Jong-il never had his control of the state challenged, but it is undeniable that his leadership was forced to adapt to an internal dynamic that had taken on a much different complexion since the height of Kim Il-sung's rule, which saw one figure directly inhabit an unprecedented amount of power.  No one could ever be the political or ideological equal of his father; that misfortune and the evolution that had already taken place forced Kim Jong-il to exercise his authority in a much different manner.  It's telling that, rather than rely on the party for his legitimacy as you would anticipate in a notionally Communist nation, Kim Jong-il emboldened his own institution, the National Defense Commission, which had been apart of the State Administrative Council -- the forerunner of the technocratic cabinet -- until 1982, effectively circumventing the existing bureaucracy and re-ordering the government.  Furthermore, while the three-year period of Confucian mourning that Kim Jong-il observed after his father's death had symbolic value, there has been speculation that he needed the time to consolidate his power, suggesting that his succession may not have proceeded as intended.  The songun strategy was only introduced to coincide with the elevation of the NDC to its preeminent position in the constitution, which could indicate that Kim Jong-il preferred an alternative arrangement and eventually encountered inertia or resistance that he circumvented.  The NDC become a conduit through which Kim Jong-il and his royal court could exert their influence, but its placement above the party and military, which retained their own independent policy making capability, might imply that Kim Jong-il's control relied more on accommodating and dividing entrenched interests than many assume.

The party had begun to atrophy as an institution during Kim Il-sung's era, but if it was completely malleable, why wouldn't Kim Jong-il have given its Central Military Commission the crucial role outlined for the NDC rather than adding another layer to the state?  Additionally, the nature of the NDC and, more broadly, the supremacy of the military in North Korean society was going to complicate implementation of his own dynastic succession, given that Kim Jong-un's only legitimacy is ideological, which is best embodied by the party.  Kim Jong-il's appointment as Supreme Commander of the KPA in 1991 afforded him the opportunity to pacify the military establishment with a view toward ensuring there would be no difficulty once Kim Il-sung was gone; it would be interesting to know if he intended from the outset to weave his identity into that institution, or if it was adaptation.

I think it's important to move beyond the traditional depiction of North Korea and consider that the state may be more diverse than is typically presented.  If it were as dependent on a central figure for its operation as is being intimated by some, the North wouldn't have survived the flurry of devastation that buffeted the nation from 1991 on: the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Kim Il-sung's death, and the debilitating famine the country has never recovered from all could've unraveled the country on their own.  The question is not Kim Jong-il's authority, which was, like his father's, supreme, but how he had chosen to orient the state in relation to his presence.  If Kim Jong-il permitted the party, military and cabinet (the executive branch led by Premier Choe Yong-rim) to act with a certain amount of autonomy, he may have simply functioned as an indisputable arbiter between regime interests rather than as an all powerful figure in the vein of his father.  Kim Jong-il would still have been essential to the running of the state, but a coterie of suitably placed individuals could immediately step in to assume his role without much difficulty, and cross-pollination between institutions within North Korea has always made distinguishing between them somewhat problematic.  Assuming that is true, there is no reason to believe that North Korea is in any danger of immediate fragmentation or actual collapse in the absence of Kim Jong-il, because the state is, to an extent, self-sustaining and not particularly reliant on his force of will.

tl dr

Is there anyone who isn't going to be that away?