📌 Context

Since the collapse of the command economy in the 1990s, North Korea has undergone intense bottom-up marketization. Social capital is defined here as shared norms and social networks, and the paper asks whether the shadow economy has reshaped these social ties.

📊 Survey and Interviews That Reveal Market Effects

• Evidence comes from a mixed-methods dataset: a survey of 1,309 defectors, roughly 100 additional interviews with defectors, and 24 in-depth interviews with former high-ranking North Korean officials.
• Both quantitative tests and qualitative analyses point to a clear, significant transformation in social capital across the country.

🔍 What Changed in Social Life

• The old form of social capital, previously organized around official workplaces and state institutions, has weakened.
• A new form of social capital has emerged in recent years, centered on marketplaces and informal economic exchanges.
• The shadow economy has been instrumental in this shift, affecting both:
• Bonding: changes in shared norms among community members tied to market activity
• Bridging: new social networks that cross previous organizational and geographic boundaries

⚠️ Limits on Civic Transformation

• Despite the rise of market-based social ties, this new social capital has not clearly translated into civic engagement or social autonomy.
• Two critical limitations—limited civic participation and constrained social independence—mean that the emergence of market-based social capital does not necessarily signal the rise of a civil society.

Why It Matters

• The findings show that bottom-up marketization can reshape everyday norms and networks under authoritarianism, yet such changes do not automatically produce civic institutions or political emancipation.
• Implications extend to understanding authoritarian resilience, informal institutions, and the conditions under which social capital might support broader social or political change.