Ellery Fisher , UM Morris 2008
The North Korean Economic Crisis and A Peaceful Korean Unification
Major
Political Science
Mentor
Seung-Ho Joo : Political Science
Brief Bio
I am the Editor-in-Chief of The University Register, the campus paper of The University of Minnesota, Morris. I enjoy foreign policy, jogging, movies, and travel.
Future Plans
I have given thought to law school, as well as to possibly service to my country.
Why Research?
I found taking courses in my field of study to be very interesting, but I found I was always hungry for more. I further pursued questions I had from classes and found that I was very interested in getting a more in-depth perspective. I approached one of my professors and it took off from there.
What Did I Get from Research?
I gained a new perspective on how Political Science and International Relations are practiced and how very useful they can be in real-world problems. I also got a much better handle on the process of developing works of scholarly research.
How Did I Start?
My faculty mentor taught a couple of my courses and is my advisor. I asked him if there were any opportunities to take what I had learned in class further. He said there was UROP, and that I should meet with him to further my understanding of the subject. We discussed how research worked and different questions I was interested in researching, and from there we drafted a research proposal.
Advice for Another Student
Go for it. Look into it. Find a faculty mentor with a background in-line with your interests and take it to the next level. As long as you have the interest, the rest is all there for you.
Project Description
What I did was to investigate the impact of North Korea's severe economic condition on the viability of a unification between North and South Korea and how South Korea's current unification policy addresses the issue. This is an important issue because both Koreas state they will eventually reunite, and the case of German reunification has proven that such reunifications can be precipitated very quickly and unexpectedly. I used a comparative case study between the situation in Korea and the German reunification to illustrate the difficulties and costs which would likely be encountered to help assess whether the cost of Korean unification would actually be too great to be possible currently. Then I used the case of Vietnam's economic reform (known as Doi moi) as a possible example of policy that South Korea should promote in North Korea, in order to help the North Korean economy improve and make unification more viable. Vietnam, like North Korea, is a communist country which embraced a market economy and globalization, while keeping its communist regime in tact, and has been incredibly successful in doing so. My finding was that South Korea's current policy towards North Korea could be greatly strengthened if it more strongly encouraged North Korea to undertake economic reforms similar to those undertaken in Vietnam.