The Decline of the North Korean Surveillance State

Abstract

IntroductionIt is often assumed that in a "totalitarian" state, the decisive surveillance role should be the domain of the political police. In North Korea daily surveillance is often conducted through institutions which occasionally interact with the police, but are generally independent of it-like a neighborhood group, or inminpan (literally "people's group," henceforth PG), whose role and activities constitute the topic of the present article. This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2010-330-B00187).This North Korean state has won a deservedly notorious reputation by relying heavily on the old-style methods of coercion and crude state power which followers of the Foucauldian school would probably associate with the ancient regime: institutionalized torture, occasional public executions and the like.1 However, the stability of the North Korean regime seems to be based not only on its use of highly visual, even spectacular, violence but rather on the application of modern techniques of social control and daily surveillance, including what the Foucauldian school describes as the "panopticon principle."David Wood explained this principle in the following words: "Panopticism, the social trajectory represented by the figure of the Panopticon, the drive to selfmonitoring through the belief that one is under constant scrutiny, thus becomes both a driving force and a key symbol of the modernist project."2 In the PG even the most mundane activities of the population are supposed to be watched constantly by the agents of the bureaucratic modernizing state.However, in the course of time the actual PG began to develop features which make it less panopticon-like than most observers would think at the first glance (and definitely less efficient an instrument than the authorities hoped for). The PG heads, instead of being constant and vigilant watchers, had to look for compromises. They had no choice, being torn apart by two incompatible sets of demands-one by their bureaucrat overseers and another by their neighbors. These trends became more visible in the past two decades when the North Korean surveillance system began its gradual disintegration.This article will trace the origins of the PG, their evolution and the changes in their functions. Special attention will be paid to the changes which occurred in the PG system in the last two decades when the carefully constructed system of Kim Il Sung's "surveillance state" began to disintegrate under the economic pressures.The PG has attracted the attention of researchers before, although almost nothing on the PG is available in English. Among studies of the PG one should mention a well-researched MA thesis by Ch'ae Kyong-hui.3 Alexander Zhebin, a Russian scholar, journalist and diplomat wrote a Ph.D. thesis specifically dealing with the topic (in Russian).4 However, in this groundbreaking work Alexander Zhebin was forced to rely largely on press reports and on some limited and sometimes distorted information he managed to receive during his two controlled and supervised visits to Pyongyang. The present article takes a different approach, relying largely on a newly available source of information-defectors' interviews. This approach allows us to concentrate on what the PG actually does, not on what it is supposed to do.The persistent shortage of sources is one of the major problems every student of North Korea has to deal with. However, in recent years the dramatic increase in the number of defectors from the North has created new opportunities for research. The refugees, largely hailing from underprivileged social groups, are usually not privy to the secrets of high political life, but can provide us with a generally reliable picture of daily life in North Korea during the past few decades.There have been some doubts about the reliability of the defectors' testimony. …