Is north Korea's form of government a dictatorship?

Answer 1

North Korea is officially a socialist republic, but unofficially it is a totalitarian Stalinist Dictatorship. There are three political parties in North Korea: The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), the Korean Social Democratic Party, and the Chondoist Chongu Party. Together, these three parties participate in the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland, or the Fatherland Front. As of 1998, the Fatherland Front has two equal and separate executive branches: the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA), led by the president; and the National Defense Commission of North Korea (NDC), led by its chairman. Prior to 1998, from 1993, the NDC was subordinate to the SPA; and prior to 1993, from 1972, the president of the SPA ruled the NDC, himself (rather than an elected chairman). The SPA, led by president Kim Yong-nam, consists of 687 constituent deputies who are elected to five-year terms. Candidates are chosen by the Fatherland Front. Officially, under the Constitution of North Korea, any citizen 17 and older is eligible for office, regardless of political party, but since the electing comity is controlled by the majority members of the WPK, led by Secretary General Kim Jong-il, it ends up being a single-party state. Once someone is nominated for a position in the SPA, only the elected individual is listed on the ballot; anyone 17 and older can vote for this one person (see how that works?). The SPA appoints a premier (currently Kim Jong-il), who appoints three vice premiers and several ministers (finance, foreign affairs, education, labour, culture, etc). The NDC, led by Chairman Kim Jong-il, controls the military; in a militaristic state, this gives the NDC a lot more power than the SPA.

Answer 2

North Korea is a Communist dictatorship, run by one powerful and autocratic ruler. Currently, that person is Kim Jung Un. And while there are elections and there is nominally a government, the citizens have no choice but to vote for the approved candidates, and few in the government have any real authority, other than what the dictator arbitrarily gives them.

Answer 3

North Korea is (factually) a dictatorship, but the question is not asking whether North Korea is or is not a dictatorship, but how North Korea considers itself, which is a far more interesting and convoluted question.

North Korea calls itself as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, seeing itself as democracy.

The term "democratic people's republic" is commonly associated with communism and comes from the idea that the dictatorship of any given communist state is really made of people who are representatives of the proletariat workers. They are "normal people" who are the forerunners of the civilization and bringing their brothers and sisters up to speed education-wise, behavior-wise, and economically. So this proletariat leadership is "democratic" since it is rule by the "emissaries of the people" (even though these people are never elected). It is a "republic", since the authority is vested in members who have no hereditary right to power (even though in North Korea, the system is actually hereditary). It is a "people's government", since the proletariat leadership represents the will of the people (even though the individual citizens have no say in the leadership). By the magic of redefining words by ideology, the term "democratic people's republic" which includes a number of words that indicate a non-hereditary, human rights-abiding country where people vote for their representatives for set terms, you create a hereditary, human rights-violating country where a nobility is in power for as long as they live.

Answer 4

Yes, an oppressive dictatorship, the worst kind (you can also have a benign dictatorship) - however they would like to say they were communist.

Answer 5

Mongolia is a Semi-Presidential Republic while North Korea is a Dynastic Communist Regime.

Answer 6

A dictatorship