I'm amazed how American intellectuals, with so little intelligence and little training in Korean affairs, always assume Kim Jong-il is the key to understanding DPRK. It's like assuming Dick Cheney really does run every department and ofice in the entire US government.
Historically, Korean leaders are leaders among equals. Court and bureaucratic politics are fierce. National identification is weaker than clan loyalty.
Focusing so snuggly on the weakest link in North Korean politics is a serious gamble. It's in the clans' interests to distract attention from their destabilizing machinations by extolling the nation or the leader. Foreign leaders should do the same. Negotiate with all players and stabilize an unstable situation.
Hence the neologism "Pyongyang-ology," reminiscent of the old Kremlin-ology that analysts used to perform on the Soviet Union, when they had only the faintest of ideas of what was actually going on in the upper reaches of Soviet leadership, but needed to say something to somebody and look as if they knew what they were talking about.
No, what most articles do is reaffirm a personality cult around the Kim clan acedemics should try hard to undermine. It's soap opera over analysis.
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