Analysis, Health, Human Rights, Nuclear Weapons

The Black Box: Demystifying the Study of Korean Unification and North Korea



2024, Columbia University Press

“[The Black Box] calls on privileged insights into North Korea. Peace, human rights, and change will only come about by adopting fresh approaches of inquiry, to which the authors of this important book summon us.”
– The Hon. Michael Kirby, Chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry on North Korea (2013-14)

The Black Box will surely transform how scholars and practitioners study and think about North Korea and the future of Korean unification.”
– Andrew Yeo, author of State, Society, and Markets in North Korea

North Korea is commonly thought of as the most mysterious place in the world. The country is marked by its opacity and inaccessibility, its inner workings seen as impossible for outsiders to grasp. In this groundbreaking book, the leading scholar and practitioner Victor D. Cha shines a light into the “black box” of North Korea and draws critical lessons for the possible reunification of Korea after many decades of division.

The Black Box demonstrates convincingly that North Korea, while far from transparent, is less inscrutable than is typically assumed. Using innovative research methods from data scraping to ethnography, including microsurveys of ordinary North Koreans, Cha unearths a trove of new information. Through these pioneering findings, and incorporating his experiences as a White House official negotiating with North Korean interlocutors and traveling to North Korea, he paints a vivid picture of this enigmatic country and develops a grounded account of its behavior.

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