Much of the literature pertaining to North and South Korean reunification is written under the presumption that the two nations will—and more importantly, that they should— eventually reunify. Rather than assuming that reunification is inevitable and hypothesizing how it might come about, I examine political, social, and economic ramifications of reunification in order to discuss why Korean unification should occur, if it all.

After three decades¡¦ steady and tremendously economic growth, China has reemerged on the center stage of the world as an aspiring great power. Its historically unprecedented leapfrogging in the global economic share levels up its comprehensive national power exponentially, and becomes the main driving force in Asia in the context of global interdependence. In the restive North East Asia, the North Korea Nuclear Crisis facilitated the United States strategic overhaul in western Pacific. For great powers, the Korea Peninsula has been a major power struggle theater since the late eighteen century, because of its geographic location. Therefore, the balance of power in the peninsular is a matter of caution in the world leaders¡¦ calculation. The United States, Russia, Japan, China, and South Korea are the major players in the subregion, all of whom are six-party talks participants. The six-party talks was originally convened to settle the hermit kingdom¡¦s nuclear ambition. Ostensibly, it was. But, when examined from the theory of the balance of power, it has multi-pronged goals---the most realistic one is to manage the structural power transition now happening in the region. Even in the late 2007 North Korea launched a series of missile and nuclear weapon test, the function of being an adjusting and preventive agent still works in the framework. Still more explicitly, the United States treats the dialogue mechanism as a litmus test to see if or not China operates in the international system as a ¡§responsible stakeholder¡¨ as it expects. Because of compound issues involved in the issue(proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear armament domino effect in North East Asia, and the miserable living conditions and humanitarian crisis in North Korea), the real mindset of China¡¦s position on dealing with it which is top on its national interest calculations could be clearly read. Moreover, North Korea stands as a buffer state in the North East Asia, its collapsing and integration with South Korea means a lot to the great powers---China is the immediate benefactor in this matter. That¡¦s why China has been voicing its concern on the basing relocation and military interoperability exercises among the United States, Japan, and South Korea. Then, the discourse, or authenticity, of ¡§peaceful development¡¨ will be given credence to or not. Given the scenario, the thesis is focused on studying the policy of China on dealing with North Korea nuclear dispute and its impacts on the Northeast Asia, trying to understand and figure out the real face of China¡¦s strategic ambitions.

<p>This is a study of how the United States has used different diplomatic strategies towards Iran and North Korea. The concept of coercive diplomacy is defined and explained, in or-der to see if it has been used by the United States, and if so, to what extent. After giving a brief historical background between the U.S and the two countries, the study will put a fo-cus on what and why the Bush administration has acted the way they have in their diplo-matic relation with Iran and North Korea. The study presents cases where you can see par-allels between strategies used, but also some significant differences. The latter part of the study will examine the reasoning behind the different strategies used. Conclusion drawn from this study was that, in the case of Iran, the United States has been forced to act in a certain way due to the other conflicts they are involved with in the region, i.e. the war in Iraq and the situation in Afghanistan. Due to the fear for North Koreas al-ready existing nuclear arsenal, the U.S. has shown a more restricted diplomatic policy to-wards the country, not wanting to push them towards starting a nuclear war.</p>

Bachelor's thesis. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

Hovedopgave. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

Hovedopgave. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

This dissertation is a study of ordinary North Korean people who have persevered in the face of tremendous social, political, and economic trials throughout their country's modern history and a tribute to their unflagging ingenuity and good humor that allowed them to hold onto their humanity. Focusing on the question of agency within the realm of everyday living, my inquiry examines the emergence of a laughing subject during the post-Korean War period and the state's efforts to discipline him through cinema in the succeeding decade. A product of the new Soviet-sponsored cultural policy of the 1950s that promoted social and political satire across the socialist world, the jester became an identity tactically adopted by various individuals, which was responsible for the proliferation of nonconformist practices in North Korea. Using Michel de Certeau's concept of the everyday as a sphere of creative inventiveness, this work describes and analyzes the small acts of "comic disobedience" by means of which the ordinary person has been able to outmaneuver the existing order and create a thriving underground culture of antidiscipline. Spanning a variety of media from print cartoons to live-action cinema to animation, the official response to the jester's challenge, on one hand, sought to create identifiable comic characters and, on the other, effectively demarcate between humor and satire with a view of turning a jarring cacophony of laughing voices into a harmonious chorus of collective mirth serving the state's needs. Based on Bakhtin's notion of heteroglossia, my method of analysis suggests that, despite the government's attempts to eliminate any ambiguity from newly constructed ideological texts, the ordinary individual always finds myriad ways to exercise autonomy through his unending playful subversion of official discourse. By tracing the evolution of this dynamic in the North Korean streets, movie theaters, and film studios over the course of nearly two decades, I argue that the production of formal film comedy was inextricably bound up with the state's desire to interpellate a politically loyal and socially conformist subject and should be seen as part of the larger everyday aesthetic of living that took root within the socialist world. / East Asian Languages and Civilizations

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Theories of nuclear weapons proliferation cannot fully account for the nuances of certain cases because proliferation is a complex process involving numerous variables, the importance of which can potentially shift across time. This seems especially true when applied to the case of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) where motivations have shifted in relevance numerous times in its proliferation history. In order to investigate this, this thesis reviews extant theories of nuclear proliferation and their ability to explain the case of the DPRK by critically examining its historical nuclear progress and nuclear weapons ambitions across time. The result is that indeed, proliferation theories are ill-equipped to completely account for the DPRK’s nuclear choices. The DPRK has ostensibly been motivated by numerous variables at different times, each having varying degrees of influence, inexplicable for mono-causal and often western and ethno-centric accounts of its proliferation motivations.

Theories of nuclear weapons proliferation cannot fully account for the nuances of certain cases because proliferation is a complex process involving numerous variables, the importance of which can potentially shift across time. This seems especially true when applied to the case of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) where motivations have shifted in relevance numerous times in its proliferation history. In order to investigate this, this thesis reviews extant theories of nuclear proliferation and their ability to explain the case of the DPRK by critically examining its historical nuclear progress and nuclear weapons ambitions across time. The result is that indeed, proliferation theories are ill-equipped to completely account for the DPRK’s nuclear choices. The DPRK has ostensibly been motivated by numerous variables at different times, each having varying degrees of influence, inexplicable for mono-causal and often western and ethno-centric accounts of its proliferation motivations.