We have written this book on the possibility of inter-Korean peace through North Korean democratization in a milieu of both pessimism and wishful thinking regarding the future of the North Korean dictatorial regime. This book will not be calculating and predicting the probability of North Korean regime collapse or survival. Rather this book plans to examine vague, unsorted, and undigested hopes for democracy in North Korea and inter-Korean peace and from them find possibilities that may be realized in the near future.

Im Hyug Baeg

Hyug Baeg Im, the lead author, is the Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Korea University. He received B.A. in political science from Seoul National University, M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago. He served as an Executive Council Member, International Political Science Associations (IPSA, 2007-2012). He was the Dean at the Graduate School of Policy Studies (2008-2012), the Director of Institute for Peace Studies and the Director of BK21 Research and Education Corps. (2008-2012) at Korea University. He had been a professor of political science at Ehwa Womans University, 1991-1998. He had served as a presidential adviser of the president Kim Dae Jung, Roh Moo Hyun and Lee Myung Bak. He had advised for Ministry of National Unification and that of National Defense, and National Assembly Research Servic ROK. He taught at Georgetown University (1995-1996), Duke University (1997), Stanford University (2002-2003) and conducted researches at National Endowment for Democracy (1995-1996) and USKI, Johns Hopkins University SAIS (2012-2013), and Asia Center, Seoul National University (2014-2015). He received the Order of Service Merit from ROK Government (2003), the Best Academic Award from Korean Political Science Association (2010), and the Best Academic Award 2015 from National Academy of Science, ROK (2015).
His major publications since 2000 include: “Crony Capitalism in South Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan: Myth and Reality,” (co-authored with Kim, Byung-Kook), Journal of East Asian Studies (2001); “Faltering Democratic Consolidation in South Korea: Democracy at the End of Three Kims Era,” Democratization (2004); “The US role in Korean Democracy and Security since Cold War Era,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific (2006); “Inter-Korean Relations and Cross-Strait Relations through the Regional Integration Theories,” Asian Survey (2011); “Better Democracy, Better Economic Growth?” International Political Science Review (2011); Democratic Development and Authoritarian Development Compared,” eds. by Shiping Hua and Ruiha Hu, East Asian Development Model (2015). “South Korean Democratic Consolidation in Comparative Perspective,”eds. by Larry Diamond and Byung Kook Kim, Consolidating Democracy in South Korea (2000); “Christian Churches and Democratization in South Korea,” eds. by Tun-jen Cheng and Debbie Brown, Religious Organizations and Democracy in Contemporary Asia (2004); “Development and Change in Korean Democracy since the Democratic Transition in 1987 ,” eds. by Yin-wah Chu and Wong, Siu-lun, East Asia’s New Democracies (2010); “The Origins of Yushin,” eds. by Byung-Kook Kim and Ezra F. Vogel, The Park Chung Hee Era (2011); “The Two Turnovers in South Korea and Taiwan,” (co-authored with Yun-han Chu), Democracy in East Asia (2013); “Political Response To Economic Crisis in 1997 and 2008 South Korea,”ed. by Hideko Magara, Economic Crisis and Policy Regimes (2014); “Social Welfare, Globalization and Democracy in South Korea,” eds. by Hyun-Chin Lim, Wolf Schäfer, Suk-Man Hwang, Global Challenges in Asia (2014).