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Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights into North Korea Paperback – December 15, 2010

by Stephan Haggard (Author), Marcus Noland (Author)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 5 ratings
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Despite its nuclear capability, in certain respects North Korea resembles a failed state sitting uneasily atop a shifting internal foundation. This instability is due in part to the devastating famine of the 1990s and the state's inability to fulfill the economic obligations that it had assumed, forcing institutions, enterprises, and households to cope with the ensuing challenges of maintaining stability with limited cooperation between the Korean government and the international community. The ineffective response to the humanitarian crisis triggered by the famine resulted in the outflow of perhaps tens of thousands of refugees whose narratives are largely overlooked in evaluating the efficacy of the humanitarian aid program.

Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights into North Korea uses extensive surveys with refugees who now reside in China or South Korea to provide extraordinary insight into the changing pathways to power, wealth, and status within North Korea. These refugee testimonies provide an invaluable interpretation of the regime, its motivations, and its capabilities and assess the situation on the ground with the rise of inequality, corruption, and disaffection in the decade since the famine. Through the lens of these surveys, preeminent North Korean experts Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland carefully document the country's transition from a centrally planned economy to a highly distorted market economy, characterized by endemic corruption and widening inequality. The authors chart refugees' reactions to the current conditions and consider the disparity between the perceived and real benefit of the international humanitarian aid program experienced by this displaced population. Finally, the book examines these refugees' future prospects for integration into a new society.
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  1. Print length
    256 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Peterson Institute for International Economics
  4. Publication date
    December 15, 2010
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 0.6 x 8.9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9780881324389
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0881324389
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Witness to Transformation is an enormously important book in that it marks the first methodical study of public opinion among North Koreans.... The leading scholars of the North Korea famine of the 1990s, Haggard and Noland find a decade later a populace focused on trying to feed themselves through their own market activity, ignoring the regime's attempts to restore the socialist system. Although the North Koreans surveyed were reluctant to criticize Kim Jong Il,... the majority listened to foreign media and resisted in their own quiet way. -- Barbara Demick, author of Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

Witness to Transformation breaks new ground in presenting the first comprehensive portrait of North Korea based on the experiences and views of the growing number of defectors who have fled the country. They describe an inhuman system that is steadily eroding, and a population that is beginning to awaken from a long night of totalitarianism. This book is essential reading for anyone concerned about the suffering of the people of North Korea and the prospect for peace on the divided Korean peninsula. -- Carl Gershman, President, National Endowment for Democracy

Witness to Transformation casts a unique window onto the changing dynamics of the world's most brutalized country, North Korea. Haggard and Noland make brilliant use of interviews with the growing ranks of refugees to extend our understanding of the human rights and humanitarian catastrophe that is North Korea, and to expose its mounting corruption, citizen disaffection, and popular willingness to consider political alternatives. Both for its stunning research findings and its forceful policy recommendations, this book is indispensable. -- Larry Diamond, Stanford University

About the Author

Marcus Noland, executive vice president and director of studies, has been associated with the Institute since 1985. From 2009 through 2012, he served as the Institute's deputy director. His research addresses a wide range of topics at the interstice of economics, political science, and international relations. His areas of geographical knowledge and interest include Asia and Africa where he has lived and worked, and the Middle East. In the past he has written extensively on the economies of Japan, Korea, and China, and is unique among American economists in having devoted serious scholarly effort to the problems of North Korea and the prospects for Korean unification. He won the 2000–01 Ohira Memorial Award for his book Avoiding the Apocalypse: The Future of the Two Koreas.

Stephan Haggard, visiting fellow, is the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Distinguished Professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California, San Diego. He has been a consultant to AID, the World Bank, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and the OECD and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of The Political Economy of the Asian Financial Crisis (2000) and coauthor of Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform (Columbia University Press, 2007).

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0881324388
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Peterson Institute for International Economics; 1st edition (December 15, 2010)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780881324389
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0881324389
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.9 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.6 x 8.9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 5 ratings

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  1. Stephan Haggard

    Stephan Haggard

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    Stephan Haggard is the Krause Distinguinshed Professor at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California San Diego. His work focuses on international and comparative political economy, with a particular emphasis on Asia. He is the editor of the Journal of East Asian Studies. His recent work with Marcus Noland examines the political economy of North Korea.

    See more on the author's page
  2. Marcus Noland

    Marcus Noland

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    I am an economist working at the interstice of economics, political science, and international relations. My book, "Avoiding the Apocalypse: the Future of the Two Koreas," won the prestigious Ohira Memorial Prize. My recent books are "Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights into North Korea" (co-authored with Stephan Haggard), and "Arab Economies in a Changing World" (co-authored with Howard Pack).

    In addition to these (and other) books I have written many scholarly articles on isues such as international economics, US trade policy, and the economies of the Asia-Pacific region, as well as op-eds for publications such as Newsweek International, the International Herald Tribune, the Financial Times, and the Washington Post. I have served as an occasional consultant to organizations such the National Intelligence Council and have testified before the US Congress on numerous occasions.

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Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
5 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Ron L
4.0 out of 5 stars Surveys taken over time
Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2022
Verified Purchase
Mistake; assumed it was newer that it is; shame on me, no mark-downs from that.
While it's somewhat of a 'dry' read, the survey data is carefully analyzed and shows a population becoming less and less brainwashed and more and more willing to trust trade rather than the government for well-being. It is obviously not to the pleasure of the current Kim, nor that of his father, but isolating the population of an entire country from outside information and influence is becoming less and less a realistic endeavor; tech and just plain survival have forced the Kims to accept that their propaganda is recognized as such and is no longer accepted at face value for a good portion of the population.
The authors do mention that any re-unification is increasingly seen by South Korean agencies as highly 'conditional'. It is clear that upon the inevitable demise of every Communist government, the resulting economic mess is left for decent people to clean up, and others have pointed out that the South Koreans watched the reunification of Germany very carefully. East Germany remains a budgetary drain on the West 30 years later, but at least the East German Communists weren't starving their population; North Korea is a disaster of proportions un-imagined.
BUT the 5th star went away on reading actions by outside actors, governments or NGOs, proposed as alleviating the suffering of the NK population; all the proposals are grounded in the supposition that the ruling elite has some interest in the welfare of the general population rather than buying support from the power structure.
Nothing in the entire history of North Korea suggests anything of the sort; the goals of saving the power, prerogatives and skins of that elite easily explain that history.
IMO, the best we can hope for has a (probably bloody) uprising with whatever Kim then holds power taking exile where the host will tolerate the stench in the hopes of reducing the total bloodshed, and the world pitching in to prevent starvation in the millions.
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Richard
4.0 out of 5 stars A Missing Piece in the Puzzle of North Korean Studies
Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2011
Verified Purchase
Witness to Transformation is a statistical analysis of two primary research groups; one group from China, and a more recent group from the Republic of Korea (South Korea). The authors draw their conclusions based on the responses from surveys completed by both groups, and compare/contrast their findings against the opposite group. While I am not a statistician or a sociologist, the number of factors the authors account for and the caution statements of how certain data may be skewed based on problems associated with the responses helped assure me (false or true) that the authors had truly done their homework. The data, while tedious to get through at points, are nonetheless revealing and fascinating. This is not a horror tale of an escaped prisoner from a political prison camp (although some of the respondents in the surveys were escaped prisoners), but a tale which draws from the collective body of North Korean defectors. This broad-brush helps a reader interested in North Korean issues gain a perspective not previously available through all the first-hand accounts of one or a few defectors.
2 people found this helpful
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CW_1
5.0 out of 5 stars Through a glass darkly...
Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2011
A vital contribution to our understanding of modern Korea, 'Witness to Transformation' provides evidence the DPRK is rapidly entering a capitalist era, despite the flailing attempts of the regime to variously harness and hinder change. Since the famine of the nineteen nineties, when state distribution utterly failed, an unstoppable process of marketization from below has transformed the economy of the DPRK, now characterized by informal market activity and rampant corruption, exacerbated by a breathtakingly comprehensive penal system. Some of the revelations here are stunning. For example, the high number of Koreans directly attributing their miseries to their own government's policies, and the low attribution of blame to the traditional enemy of 'outside powers,' principally Yankee Imperialism. Given the extent of cradle to grave propaganda in North Korea, it is a testimony to the human imagination that so many defectors considered the United States their second most favoured home of choice, after South Korea. Clearly, many are dreaming of 'the enemy'. Although reliant on defector testimony, sneeringly dismissed by the Bruce Cumings school of thought, my feeling is that North Korean defector testimony is broadly reliable, and Noland & Haggard go to great lengths to demonstrate their methodological accounting for various potential biases in the data. As the authors acknowledge, 'Witness To Transformation' is not written in the same populist style as Barbara Demick's excellent book, 'Nothing To Envy,' but they complement each other well. It is important to have data presented in this formal way, but given the remarkable insights contained, it is frankly no less compelling.
3 people found this helpful
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World
5.0 out of 5 stars Easy to understand
Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2014
The book is well written. Easy to understand.
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