In this paper I apply the Rational Actor model to the 1993-1994 North Korean Nuclear Crisis. I begin with two hypotheses: 1) North Korea attempted nuclear armament because of its perception of threat from South Korea and the United States; 2) North Korea attempted nuclear armament because it wanted to use its nuclear program as leverage to obtain economic assistance from the United States. I conduct a diplomatic historical analysis based on the Rational Actor model to determine which was North Korea's primary objective, and conclude that the primary objective of North Korea was obtaining economic concessions, but that threat perception did seem to play a role in the decision to start the nuclear program. In this process, I show that the Rational Actor model was insufficient in the analysis and that it must be complemented by cultural factors, "thickening" the rationality. / Master of Arts

This doctoral thesis aims to provide a comprehensive and historical analysis of foreign policy behaviour of the principal states involved in nuclear talks on North Korea known as the Six-Party Talks (SPT). Despite the failure in achieving a primary objective of denuclearizing North Korea, the SPT were believed to provide interesting and informative cases to investigate dynamic interactions among states engaged in security talks with different motives and interests. For a holistic approach to foreign policy analysis, the thesis adopts a newly introduced theoretical framework called Interactionist Role Theory (IRT) which integrates the levels of analysis from individuals to international system by incorporating the concept of ‘roles’. Based on IRT, the thesis examines what drove the concerned states’ foreign policy shifts; what kinds of discrepancies the states experienced between or among competing roles (role conflicts); how successful their deliberate policy implementations were (role-makings); and what structural effects their foreign policy decisions had on the overall Six-Party Talks process. The thesis findings support the IRT premise that it is critical to understand a state’s perceived ideal roles to accurately identify the state’s motives for actions regarding particular foreign policy issues. The prevalence of inter-role conflicts at the time of states’ role-makings evinces that the SPT as social constraints did exert competing role expectations that challenged the member states’ role conceptions. Above all, the sequential analysis of the SPT process clearly shows the mutual influence between the member states (agents) and the SPT (social structure), which implies successful multilateral negotiations require reciprocal relations among participating states where all parties’ desired roles (role conceptions) are mutually verified and affirmed. The thesis is deemed to give insightful messages to conventional foreign policy readings that predominantly view the nuclear drama in the Northeast Asia region from a binary focus of US-DPRK mutual deterrence.

This doctoral thesis aims to provide a comprehensive and historical analysis of foreign policy behaviour of the principal states involved in nuclear talks on North Korea known as the Six-Party Talks (SPT). Despite the failure in achieving a primary objective of denuclearizing North Korea, the SPT were believed to provide interesting and informative cases to investigate dynamic interactions among states engaged in security talks with different motives and interests. For a holistic approach to foreign policy analysis, the thesis adopts a newly introduced theoretical framework called Interactionist Role Theory (IRT) which integrates the levels of analysis from individuals to international system by incorporating the concept of ‘roles’. Based on IRT, the thesis examines what drove the concerned states’ foreign policy shifts; what kinds of discrepancies the states experienced between or among competing roles (role conflicts); how successful their deliberate policy implementations were (role-makings); and what structural effects their foreign policy decisions had on the overall Six-Party Talks process. The thesis findings support the IRT premise that it is critical to understand a state’s perceived ideal roles to accurately identify the state’s motives for actions regarding particular foreign policy issues. The prevalence of inter-role conflicts at the time of states’ role-makings evinces that the SPT as social constraints did exert competing role expectations that challenged the member states’ role conceptions. Above all, the sequential analysis of the SPT process clearly shows the mutual influence between the member states (agents) and the SPT (social structure), which implies successful multilateral negotiations require reciprocal relations among participating states where all parties’ desired roles (role conceptions) are mutually verified and affirmed. The thesis is deemed to give insightful messages to conventional foreign policy readings that predominantly view the nuclear drama in the Northeast Asia region from a binary focus of US-DPRK mutual deterrence. / The full text has been embargoed.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Security Studies / Dale R. Herspring / North Korea and the ruling Kim regime continues to present a unique security dilemma to both East Asia and the international community. The Kim regime's actions, which often include hostile military and diplomatic foreign policy actions, often seem inconsistent with parallel efforts to peacefully engage the international community. This research examines the following question: what has been the historic relationship between North Korea’s domestic conditions and its propensity to engage in “hostile” diplomatic and military activities? I also consider whether the concept of diversionary theory, the idea that leaders pursue external conflict when faced with domestic problems, is an explanation for these actions. The study initially proposes there is a relationship between North Korea’s domestic challenges and its willingness to engage in conflict activities aimed primarily at South Korea and the United States. To test these ideas, I conduct a quantitative analysis of North Korean event data collected from both US and Korean sources from 1960-2011 and a qualitative analysis of three case studies. My findings provide only limited support to the idea that internal conditions faced by the Kim regime influence its conflict behavior. More influential are a select number of external conditions, especially those involving South Korea, which often prompt North Korean responses and heightened conflict levels. This research also finds that the ruling Kim regime has often turned to diversion-type actions as a means to achieve domestic goals, yet diversionary theory itself is insufficient to explain these activities. North Korea represents an ongoing security dilemma for both East Asia and the international community and in this study, I demonstrate how historical and political science methods can be used to examine and explain the actions of this reclusive state.

This study examines China and the United States’ sanctions vis-à-vis the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea and Burma. The central research question is: Given China’s historical stance on sanctions is it possible to encourage China to further support the sanctions regimes against North Korea and Burma? If so, how? And if not, should the sanctions regime be modified by the sender states in order to achieve the original goals of the sanctions given China’s unwillingness to support the regime? Using all UNSC cases from 1997 to the present this study explores the likelihood of China’s involvement in sanctions by identifying what factors make China’s involvement in sanctions more likely, referred to in this study as China’s sanctions parameters. After applying China’s sanctions parameters to the cases of North Korea and Burma it is found that in North Korea, China could more rigorously uphold the spirit of the UNSC sanctions. Specifically, it is recommended that China tighten its restrictions on the export of luxury goods and further restrict and inspect DPRK planes flying over Chinese airspace. Furthermore, this thesis suggests that the US apply pressure on China to change its behavior in these two areas as well as apply consistent sanctions rhetoric towards the DPRK. These recommendations are feasible as they do not overly stretch China’s sanctions parameters or overtax US capabilities. In the case of Burma, it is found that US sanctions vastly overstretch China’s sanctions parameters making it highly unlikely China will participate in the sanctions regime. Thus, it is recommended the US modify its sanctions regime to achieve the goal of liberalization in Burma.

South Korea’s security discourse on the nuclear threat posed by North Korea has been dichotomised by its position within the political spectrum between the progressives and conservatives. By drawing upon Securitisation Theory (ST), this study challenges the current security discourse in South Korea, which has divided and misled the public as well as securitising actors. This study examines the security discourses of the Roh Moo-hyun (2003–2008) and Lee Myung-bak (2008–2013) administrations, since they represent the archetypes of the progressives and conservatives respectively. The results of the analysis suggest that the current security discourses that have been prevalent in South Korea do not correspond with reality and, subsequently, the discourses were not able to deal with real challenges that the nuclear threat posed. This research also explains the root cause of the distorted security discourses by applying a ‘discursive chasm’ as a preliminary concept, which indicates a discursive structure that fundamentally impedes the performance of securitising actors’ articulation, and that distorts the discursive formation (securitisation processes). The chasms consist of three elusive discourses: first, a discourse on threats that cannot simply be said to be either imminent or not imminent (nuclear weapons as materiality and discourse); second, a discourse on the other that cannot easily be defined (the difficulty of representation of North Korea); and third, a discourse on measures that cannot easily be realised (intangible extraordinary measures).

The aim of this bachelor study was to examine how the conflict between USA and North Korea is framed by the swedish newspaper Aftonbladet and if there was a change in their use of frames after Donald Trump got inaugurated as president of The United States.   By using framing analysis we identified three different frames, “The dictatorship as a threat against world peace”, “The careless leader” and “The incompetent leader”.   We could then with a quantitative approach examine how often these frames was used by Aftonbladet and if there was a change after Donald Trump got inaugurated as president.   These were the questions examined: Which frames of the conflict between North Korea and USA are used in Aftonbladet and how often are they used? Is there any difference in which frames is used after Donald Trump became president of The United States?   We read 131 news articles from Aftonbladet which focused on the conflict. The period spanned from 2013-01-01 to 2017-12-07.   We found that the most commonly used frame was “The dictatorship as a threat against world peace” and we could also see that after Donald Trump became president a new frame emerged, “The careless leader”.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze whether there are any differences in how the two American presidential administrations of Clinton and Obama have formed their foreign policy, in regards to North Korea. In order to carry out my analysis I have gathered relevant material from public statements made by Presidents Clinton and Obama, as well as their respective Secretaries of Defense. My theoretical framework consists of constructivism, and of doctrine. The material is then presented and illustrated with the help of word clouds. The conclusions I have been able to reach show that there were different foreign policy doctrines between Presidents Clinton and Obama. President Clinton’s administration was more focused on preventing North Korea from becoming a nuclear state, whereas the administration of President Obama needed to prevent the North Koreans from using their nuclear arsenal.

North Korea, throughout its history, has had four representative pop music bands that frequently appear on broadcast media to propagate Juche philosophy and represent the political stance of the government: the Bochonbo electronic band, the Wangjaesan light music band, the Moranbong band, and the Chongbong band. The first two were formed during the Il-Sung-Kim regime and gained popularity during the Jung-Il-Kim regime; and the latter two are representative of the Jung-Eun-Kim regime. These bands always appeared at special occasions of North Korea and are used as mouthpieces for the government and the supreme leaders. This study explores the characteristics of North Korean pop music in conjunction with political implications by examining performances of these representative four bands. The aims are to interrogate how pop music in that country has been presented under governmental control, to ascertain what perception the North Korean governors have about pop music, and to delineate specific features in the music that can be identified as political. Certain aspects of the current Jung-Eun-Kim regime and its pop music are appearing for the first time in an academic context and existing research on the earlier regimes of Il-Sung Kim and Jung-Il Kim are posited in relation to this. The genesis of the Wangjaesan light music band and the Bochonbo electronic music band is closely connected to Jung-Il Kim’s directive that North Korean music had to be modernised. The Wangjaesan band concentrated more on traditional music, while the Bochonbo band did on modern trends and life songs. Their performances provide evidence of an un-detachable relationship with Jung-Il Kim’s politics and his perspective on music, “artistry without ideology is worthless”. The Moranbong band and the Chongbong band were formed by Jung Eun Kim himself and they can be regarded as symbolic musical groups of his regime. Demonstrating the earlier Juche ideas of the previous regimes by performing older songs from that era, the bands also illustrate new ideologies of the current regime. It would seem that none of their music was created purely for the artistic and cultural demand of the public. The political use of the bands has been totally intentional since their formation. / Thesis (DMus)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Music / DMus / Unrestricted

ble agreement did not exist due to the involved parties' irreconcilable positions. Two hypoth- eses addressing factors that are exogenous to the negotiations such as the parties' underlying negotiators' pursuits within the Six