ABSTRACT To what extent is change taking place within North Korea? Have market forces altered the relationship between state and society? How might the flow of information from the outside world challenge the regime’s legitimacy and authoritarian rule? Questions pertaining to domestic change and continuity in North Korean politics have persisted since the end of the Cold War and the death of North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung, in 1994. This essay draws on insights from four relatively recent books to assess claims about 1) the growth of markets and the degree of change that has taken place in North Korean society since the famine; 2) the gap between North Koreans’ public and private thoughts about the regime as information flows increase in North Korea, and what this means in terms of regime legitimacy; and 3) whether the recent Trump–Kim summit has helped to facilitate processes of change in North Korea. Rather than posing change and continuity in North Korea as an either/or question, social scientists might instead ask under what conditions, in which issue-areas and regions, and to what degree change has (or has not) taken place in North Korea.

中文翻译：

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评估朝鲜的国内变化和连续性

摘要 朝鲜内部正在发生多大程度的变化？市场力量是否改变了国家与社会的关系？来自外部世界的信息流如何挑战政权的合法性和专制统治？自冷战结束和朝鲜创始人金日成于 1994 年去世以来，与朝鲜政治的国内变化和连续性有关的问题一直存在。本文借鉴了四本相对较新的书籍的见解，以评估关于 1 ) 市场的增长以及自饥荒以来朝鲜社会发生的变化程度；2）随着朝鲜信息流的增加，朝鲜人对政权的公开和私人想法之间的差距，以及这在政权合法性方面意味着什么；3) 最近的特金会是否有助于促进朝鲜的变革进程。与其将朝鲜的变化和连续性视为一个非此即彼的问题，社会科学家可能会问，朝鲜在什么条件下、在哪些问题领域和地区发生了（或没有）发生了何种程度的变化。