Markets and the Development of Social Trust in the Everyday Politics of North Korea: Chinese Entrepreneurs’ Perspectives

ABSTRACT

The growth of markets in North Korea has spurred discussion about the prospects for social change in the country. This article explores whether and how marketisation increases social trust among market participants and its implications for everyday politics in North Korea. We draw insights from the literature on social trust as well as empirical evidence from interviews conducted with Chinese business entrepreneurs operating in North Korea to better understand the relationship between market activity and trust in North Korea. We argue that market participants rely on a variety of strategies to navigate North Korea’s ambiguous political and economic climate. These strategies are often adopted to increase transparency, access information, reduce uncertainty, and resolve business disputes between parties. Ultimately, each of these strategies is linked to building trust among North Koreans. At the same time, the North Korean state has also inserted itself into trust networks to extract additional resources from markets and (re)establish political control. Thus, in the everyday politics of North Korea, participation in informal markets reflects socialisation into norms and behaviours that increase trust while simultaneously providing support to the state.

KEYWORDS:

• North Korea
• markets
• social trust
• everyday politics
• China

Acknowledgements

Author names are in alphabetical order. This article is part of a larger project that includes a paper that was presented at a forum hosted by the Center for Korean Women and Politics in August 2020, and a report, ‘Market Activities and Civil Society Building Blocks in North Korea’, that was distributed by the National Committee on North Korea in February 2021 and was co-authored with Daniel Wertz. We thank Hyung-min Joo and editors at ASR for helpful comments. Interviews were conducted using protocol 2012/2708 of the University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflicts of interest are reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. For further discussion of the sampling and methodology of the interviews, see Hastings and Wang (2017).

^2. Although this support is often less performative than non-market activities.

^3. Thanks to Hyung-min Joo for this point.

Additional information

Funding

Research for this article was partially funded by the Australian Research Council (grant DP140102098) and the National Endowment for Democracy.