The Dilemma of the Nuclear Question in North Korea and Security in Northeast Asia: Multilevel Approaches

Most research on North Korea has adopted a “reductionist approach” (Kenneth Waltz) that certainly helps to understand some of the behavior of the country on the international scene but fails to give a complete overview. To fill this gap, this paper analyzes the foreign policy of North Korea during the post-Cold War area at different levels such as the “theory of two-level games” (Robert Putnam) and “strategic perspective” (Bruce Bueno de Mesquita). This approach helps to explain the reasoning underlying the fundamental models that guide the repeated behavior of this country in the post-Cold War area.