This is part of a larger series examining some of North Korea’s key state institutions. The series has also covered the State Affairs Commission, the Central Military Commission, as well as the Politburo and the Central Committee and the Supreme People’s Assembly.

Communist countries often have two parallel hierarchies: a Party and a state one, with the country’s central governing organ being the apparatus of the Central Committee of the Party assisted by the Cabinet of Ministers. On a local level, in the case of North Korea, there is also the local Party Committee