North Korea’s 2018 Foreign Policy U-turn: Using Levels of Analysis to Understand Kim Jong-un’s Rationale
Journal: The Korean Journal of International Studies
Year: 2020

In March, 2018, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) unexpectedly announced that it would re-start negotiations with the United States (US) with regards to nuclear weapons development, signaling an unexpected, but significant, U-turn in its foreign policy. Whilst many academics have put this down to the effect of increased sanctions on the DPRK, I argue that leadership changes in both the US and Republic of Korea (RoK) were the main factor, since these leadership changes brought ab