Leader Symbols and Personality Cult in North Korea
The legitimacy of the North Korean state is based solely on the leaders personal legitimacy, and is maintained by the indoctrination of people through leader symbols and the enactment of leadership cults in daily life. It can thus be dubbed a leader state. The frequency of leader symbols and the richness and scale of leader-symbol-making in North Korea are unrivalled. The personality cults of North Korean leaders are central to peoples daily activity, critically affecting their minds and emotions. Both leader symbols and cult activities are profoundly entrenched in institutions and in daily life; if these symbols were to be separated and removed, the North Korean state would be transformed.
This book analyses North Korea as a leader state, focusing on two elements: leader symbols and cult activities. It argues that these elements have been, and continue to be, the backbone of North Korea, shaping the nations culture. To reveal its leader state character, the book specifically examines North Koreas leadership cults, its use of leader symbols in these cults, and the nature of the symbolism involved. How has the North Korean state developed the cult of the Kim Il Sung family? How does the state use leader symbols to perpetuate this cult? How has the state developed myths and rituals that sustain the cult in daily life? What leader images has state propaganda manufactured? How does the states manipulation of leader symbols affect the symbolism that is assigned to the leaders actions? In answering these questions, this book sheds new light on the strength and resilience of the North Korean state, and shows how it has been able to survive even the most difficult economic period of the mid-1990s.
Leader Symbols and Personality Cult in North Korea will be essential reading for students and scholars of North Korea, Korean politics, Asian politics, political sociology, and visual politics.
Jae-Cheon Lim is Associate Professor in the Department of North Korean Studies at Korea University, South Korea.
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First published 2015
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ISBN: 978-1-138-83142-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-73657-0 (ebk)
I began to think about the topic of this book after my article Kim Jong Il and Symbolic Leadership: Focusing on the Symbolism of His Guidance Tours was published in The Journal of Peace Studies, vol. 11, no. 2 (2010). The article was originally written to explain symbolism in Kim Jong Ils behavior. After writing it, I further developed the ideas of the book while I was working on a co-authored article (with Ho-Yeol Yoo), Institutionalization of the Cult of the Kims: Its Implications for North Korean Political Succession,
