RISE OF THE DISLOYAL: INCREASING RESENTMENT IN NORTH KOREA

Why has loyalty to the Kim Family Regime and the Worker’s Party diminished over the past twenty years despite a rise in the average standard of living, greater social mobility, and a regime policy of benign neglect towards marketization? Unthinkable in the Kim Il Sung era, the increase in expressions of resentment toward the North Korean authorities represents a shift in the ideology, behavior, and motivation of the population. Four critical factors have heightened tensions between state and society in North Korea, leading to a reduction in loyalty among the general population. The author considers the impact of labor mobilizations, the declining importance of party membership, the influence of foreign media, and the rise of rent seeking and extractive policies. While all play a role, it is important and possible to identify the primary cause. Extractive policies and rent-seeking position the regime and the people in a directly adversarial relationship. All tiers and agencies of the government have become complicit in efforts to siphon off profits, control market actors through crony capitalism, rent seek, over-regulate, and compete against private market actors, causing the residents to express frustration and resentment towards a government that does not have their interests at heart.     

Reviews

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Reform in Lieu of Change: Tastes Great, Less Filling

In this response to Light, Koppell argues that the increasing frequency of reform may reflect Congress's inability to make significant changes to the substance of entrenched government programs. Moreover, he observes that the more profound evolution in government has been the movement toward market-based provision of services, which has created demand for new competencies in the public sector.     

The Politics of Local Government Stabilization Funds

The adoption, maintenance, and prudent use of budgetary stabilization funds are fundamental financial management precepts, yet the variables that influence the size of these funds are poorly understood. This article contributes to the stabilization fund literature by examining the extent to which variation in stabilization fund balances across municipalities and over time can be explained by a community's political culture and financial management capacity. The balanced panel research design includes archival data for 239 Massachusetts municipalities for each of 18 fiscal years. Stabilization fund balances are lower in communities with either an anti‐tax or a pro‐spending political culture. Stabilization fund balances are higher in communities that have the financial management capacity to accumulate budget surpluses that can be made available for appropriation to stabilization funds. Communities with the open town meeting form of government also have higher stabilization fund balances.     

中印关系的进展、认知与和平前景

中印两国政府希望加强双边关系.本文旨在评估政府的这种热情能否对两国大众、政治参与者以及专家间的相互认知产生积极的影响.通过对民意调查、出版物和官方文件的分析,发现事实并非如此.两国问的相互认知明显地表现为矛盾心理和不信任情绪.     

危险的顺耳之言

我们到处寻找安慰,尤其是在股市动荡的年月,比如2007年。但这种寻求安慰的过程却可能将我们引入歧途我们要讨论的问题是一种被称为“确认偏误”(confirmation bias)的行为现象。我们总认为自己能理性地看待世界,衡量各种因素,得出理性的结论。但实际上,我们都有自己认定的东西——而且我们紧紧抓住支持这种信念的信息,同时对不同意见和相互矛盾的证据却不屑一顾。“确认偏误具有很强的渗透性,能够潜移默化地影响人们的     

Data Protection: An Opening Door?

Swedish public law has incorporated a general rule of public access to documents, and to information in the wider sense, since the Freedom of the Press Act of 1766. On the Community level, the relationship between Regulation (EC) 45/2001 on data protection and Regulation (EC) 1049/2001 on public access to documents exemplifies the tension between the public's interest in scrutinising the administration carried on in its name, and the integrity of the individual. However, a similar tension exists between Sweden's Personal Data Act of 1998, implementing Directive 95/46, and the Freedom of the Press Act. A misuse model of data protection law, by seeking to concentrate on serious rather than technical infringements of privacy, might serve to ease the tension. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and are not attributable to any Community institution. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.