Jieun Baek, "Privileged But Powerless: How North Korean Elite Grievances Reveal the Regime’s Greatest Weakness" (Yale UP, 2026)
What do the people closest to power really think about the system they serve? That’s perhaps one of the most important questions one could ask about North Korea, still one of the world’s least understood countries.
Today, we’re joined by Jieun Baek, author of Privileged But Powerless: How North Korean Elite Grievances Reveal the Regime’s Greatest Weakness (Yale UP, 2026). She draws on in-depth interviews with North Korean elite escapees—from senior party cadres and diplomats to military officers and wealthy, politically connected figures—to explore a group often assumed to be secure…
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