ACADEMIC PAPER SERIES Korea Economic Institute of America 1 The Whisper in the Ear: Re-defector Press Conference as Information Management Tool By Christopher Green, Steven Denney, and Brian Gleason Abstract Although coercion is a key element in the governing strategy of the North Korean party-state, the authoriies in Pyongyang do not hold poliical power at the barrel of a gun alone. Control and manipulaion of informaion are equally important tools. This paper uses the case of “re-defector” press conferences convened in Pyongyang between 2011 and 2013 to illustrate how the party-state employs an acive informaion management strategy to butress its rule. Building upon the contemporary “poliics of authoritarianism” literature and the concept of governmental- ity, this paper uilizes Thomas Callaghy’s “domain consensus” as a framework to codify the reciprocal communicaive process by which the party-state interacts with the ciizenry. The domain consensus framework subdivides authoritarian control into a trifurcated framework of ideal types: coercive, uilitarian, and normaive. This working paper focuses on the third of these – the normaive. As such, this paper explores the informaion management strategy used to promote a consensus on expecta- ions of life inside and outside North Korea. Using brand new structured interview indings, this paper also provides a botom- up perspecive that shows how the informaion propagated by the government of Kim Jong-un is manipulated, rejected, or reproduced by ordinary people. Keywords: North Korea, poliics of authoritarianism, domain consensus, North Korean defectors, informaion management Introducion 1 Although coercion is a key element in the governing strategy of the North Korean party-state, where, as in similar poliical systems, a single party dominates access to poliical oice and posiions of policy-making, the authoriies in Pyongyang do not hold poliical power at the barrel of a gun alone. Control and manipulaion of informaion are equally important tools. This paper uses the case of “re-defector” press conferences convened in Pyongyang between 2011 and 2013 to illustrate how the party-state employs an acive informaion management strategy to butress its rule. Building upon the contemporary “poliics of authoritarianism” literature and the concept of governmentality, this paper uilizes Thomas Callaghy’s “domain consensus” as a framework to codify the reciprocal communicaive process by which the party-state interacts with North Korean ciizens. The domain consensus framework subdivides authoritarian control into a trifurcated framework of ideal types: coercive, uilitarian, and normaive. This working paper focuses on the third of these – the norma- ive. It explores the informaion management strategy used to promote a consensus on expectaions of life inside and outside North Korea. Using brand new structured interview indings, it provides a botom-up perspecive that shows how the informa- ion propagated by the government of Kim Jong-un is manipu- lated, rejected, or reproduced by ordinary people. Mr. Christopher Green is a Ph.D. candidate at Leiden University and the Manager of Internaional Afairs at the Daily NK. Mr. Steven Denney is a Ph.D. student at the University of Toronto and a columnist for The Diplomat. Mr. Brian Gleason has a master’s degree from Yonsei Graduate School of Internaional Studies and contributes to SinoNK.com. This paper is the seventy-third in KEI’s Academic Paper Series. As part of this program, KEI commissions and distributes approximately ten papers per year on original subjects of current interest to over 5,000 Korea watchers, government oicials, think tank experts, and scholars around the United States and the world. At the end of the year, these papers are compiled and published in KEI’s On Korea volume. For more informaion, please visit www.keia.org/aps_on_korea. Korea Economic Insitute of America 1800 K Street, NW Suite 1010 Washington, DC 20006 www.keia.org March 12, 2015 Re-defector Press Conference as Information Management Tool