The Politics of Engagement with North Korea

Stuart Thorson, Frederick Carrier

Science & Diplomacy, October 2022

Stuart Thorson

Frederick Carriere

Political Science Department

Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs

Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict & Collaboration

East Asia

International Affairs

United States

Science & Diplomacy

Stuart Thorson

Frederick Carriere

We believe that our science engagement efforts were made possible by an understanding, shared with our North Korean academic counterparts, that scientific inquiry is empirical and based on widely accepted research protocols and standards for assessing the validity of scientific truth claims. But since 2016, there has been a global erosion of this shared understanding.

National borders have become more important as globalization has come under attack and scientific claims are increasingly viewed as expressions of political ideology. We are failing to heed the warnings by American diplomat and historian George Kennan not to “become like those with whom we are coping."