A country of stark contradictions and puzzles, North Korea exhibits uncanny resilience in the face of external shocks and internal woes, raising important questions of theoretical and real-world significance. What has made it possible for North Korea to defy the classical realist axiom, "The strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept"? What is the nature of the North Korean threat in post-Cold War Northeast Asia? What kind of bargaining leverage d...

In the mid-1990s, as many as one million North Koreans died in one of the worst famines of the twentieth century. The socialist food distribution system collapsed primarily because of a misguided push for self-reliance, but was compounded by the regime's failure to formulate a quick response-including the blocking of desperately needed humanitarian relief.As households, enterprises, local party organs, and military units tried to cope with the economic collapse, a grassroots proces...

Countries blessed with abundant natural resources often seek financial and political power from their supposedly lucky status. But the potentially negative impact of natural resources on development of poor countries is captured in the phrase "the resource curse." Instead of success and prosperity, producers of gold, oil, rubber, sugar, and other commodities—many in the least developed parts of Africa and Asia—often remain mired in poverty and plagued by economic mismanagement, political a...

Because authoritarian regimes like North Korea can impose the costs of sanctions on their citizens, these regimes constitute "hard targets." Yet authoritarian regimes may also be immune—and even hostile—to economic inducements if such inducements imply reform and opening. This book captures the effects of sanctions and inducements on North Korea and provides a detailed reconstruction of the role of economic incentives in the bargaining around the country's nuclear program.Stephan H...

Asian financial systems, which serve the most economically dynamic region of the world, survived the global economic crisis of the last several years. In From Stress to Growth: Strengthening Asia's Financial Systems in a Post-Crisis World, scholars affiliated with the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Asian Development Bank argue in separate essays that Asian systems must strengthen their quality, diversity, and resilience to future shocks in order to deliver ...

The Northeast Asian security environment is closely linked to Korea’s growth perspectives for the future. The spectacular rise of the South Korean economy in the past half century, also known as “Miracle on the Han River,” has been duly highlighted as one of the most successful cases of economic development worldwide. However, among the factors curbing South Korea’s growth perspectives has been, from the very beginning of its rise, the coexistence of the difficult neighbour to the North, D...

"A clearheaded, multidimensional tour of China's political, economic, and social landscapes." — Current History"Packed with facts and figures, but enlivened with firsthand observations. . . . An excellent introduction to China for anyone in search of solid but concise information about that complicated country." — The New York Times Book ReviewFor more than a decade, John Bryan Starr's indispensable guide has introduced un...

This 2010 book examines the changes in politics, economics, society, and foreign policy in South Korea since 1980. Starting with a brief description of its history leading up to 1980, this book deals with South Korea's transition to democracy, the stunning economic development achieved since the 1960s, the 1997 financial crisis, and the economic reforms that followed and concludes with the North Korean nuclear crisis and foreign relations with regional powers. The theoretical framework of ...

Like elsewhere in Europe, the crisis has affected economic developments in the Western Balkans, from Croatia in the north to Albania in the south. The countries in the region face difficulties such as high unemployment, decreased availability of bank credit and reduced trade. Furthermore, the inability of their political institutions to deal immediately with these economic challenges has reinforced the negative effects of the crisis. What does this mean for the Western Balkans’ accession t...

North Korea is one of the most closed and secretive societies in the world. Despite a high level of interest from the outside world, we have very little detailed information about how the country functions economically. In this valuable book for both the academic and policy-making circles, Byung-Yeon Kim offers the most comprehensive and systematic analysis of the present day North Korean economy in the context of economic systems and transition economics. It addresses what is really happe...

What would China's revolutionary leader, Mao Zedong, think if he were alive today? Mao's Chinese Communist Party continues to hold a monopoly on political power, and at its core China remains a developing nation. But in many respects, today's China bears little resemblance to the country that emerged under Mao's leadership after 1949. Most important, today's People's Republic of China is Communist in name only. Rapid economic liberalization has brought capitalism, and unprecedented prosper...

The aim of the book is to provide readers with an understanding of the important and emerging political, economic and social trends and challenges in East Asia in the coming years.There is urgency to conduct such a review of the state of East Asian affairs as the international and regional environments seemed to be headed towards greater uncertainty. At the international level, the European Union (EU) continues to grapple with its debt crisis with no clear resolution in sight. On the other...