How long can North Korea survive? The Kim regime’s durability despite its moribund economy and daunting international sanctions has often confounded experts and laypersons alike, but it may pay to examine how social control in the country relies on the rational behavior of its people.

The patterns of behavior that the DPRK’s coercive state apparatus seeks to utilize and strengthen are the same that drive voter apathy and a broad disinterest in politics in established democracies. They are also patterns that entrench small powerful groups in societies more generally.

NK Pro analysis finds