The concept of “informal politics,” refurbishing previous work on informal power, informal institutions, and informal economy, has recently witnessed rejuvenation in East Asian comparative politics in general and Chinese politics in particular. Yet despite its obvious relevance, informal politics has largely remained terra incognita in the study of North Korean politics. The prevailing assumption was that, given North Korea's inaccessibility and the paucity of data, we are not able to peer into the “black box” of Pyongyang's informal politics. Moreover, if socialism has mono-organizational tendencies, the North Korean political system is mono-organizational to a fault. To the extent that factional strife is deemed coterminous with informal politics, the concept thus seemed a poor “fit” for the study of contemporary North Korean politics.

Yet the informal dimension has always remained an integral part of North Korean politics, albeit in shifting form. This has more to do with the unsettled nature of the politics of a divided Korea than with traditional political culture. The division of the nation in 1945 set in motion a politics of competitive legitimation and delegitimation as each Korea, starting from an identical cultural and historical baseline, began pursuing separate paths in a parallel state-building and legitimacy-seeking process underwritten by the two competing superpowers. This was the beginning of a legitimacy cum identity challenge that a divided Korea would have to cope with for years.