ABSTRACT
Can the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) survive as a distinct regime, an autonomous state, a specific political-economic system, and a sovereign country?
Can it continue to function in the manner in which it has been performing since the end of 1991-that is to say, since the final collapse of the Soviet empire? Or is it doomed to join the Warsaw Pact’s failed communist experiments in the dustbin of history? Or might it, instead, adapt and evolve-that is, survive by maintaining its political authority and power to rule, but transforming its defining functional characteristics and systemic identity?
