북한의 체제전환의 가능성과 전략적 한계

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Regime change is a word for explaining a political change since the collapse of former Soviet and Eastern European countries. That is, the word has drawn attention to describe a process of regime change in these nations, in which a word like either revolution or reform cannot be fully explained. By utilizing this theory of regime change, the aim of this study is to predict possibility of regime change, to evaluate economic and diplomatic reform measures which North Korea had sought in the past, and to predict the future. The most important thing here would be that we could find some evidence in which North Korea might have already pursued independent regime change before the launch of nuclear issue. That is, North Korea has been attempting some change through a series of economic reform measures and opening in diplomatic relations even before the start of its nuclear crisis. But the problem really begun when North Korean reform had not been able to continue since the nuclear crisis appeared as an impending issue in international society. In this respect, this is to support a hypothesis on whether North Korea changes or not depends on an external environment, rather than a choice made by North Korea. Hence, this article is to propose a role of the South Korean government and meaning in preparation for future unification connecting possible scenarios and possibility of regime change in North Korea.