The decade after the Korean War (1950-1953) was a formative era for North Korea. Many of the striking features of the country's political and social system visible today took root during the postwar era, from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s.

The era was, above all, a time of proud achievements for North Korea. Socialist politics are often referred to as substantive economic democracy based on the principle of egalitarian access to and distribution of social goods, in contrast to the formal democracy of liberal states founded on ideas of universal suffrage and personal liberty to pursue greater access to social goods. In the early postwar years, North Korea achieved great success in building a state and economic system on the model of substantive democracy, rapidly transforming a war-torn, and previously highly stratified, primarily agrarian society into an energetic, industrial society enjoying distributive justice and universal literacy.

North Korea recorded this achievement in a relatively brief period of time and with relatively little social turbulence or political violence compared to other revolutionary socialist states. This was, in significant measure, an ironically positive consequence of the Korean War, which, although it literally brought North Korea to ashes and claimed unimaginable suffering from its population, nevertheless had the effect of eliminating major class conflicts and social inequalities. The war resulted in poverty and deprivation for everyone; it also uprooted potential class and political enemies, many of whom moved to South Korea during the war.  

Ranging broadly across the period from the guerrilla struggle in Manchukuo to today, the authors examine the character and contradictions of the North Korean partisan family state.  

Heonik Kwon is professorial senior research fellow in social anthropology at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, and an Asia-Pacific Journal associate. Byung-Ho Chung is professor of cultural anthropology and director of the Institute for Globalization and Multicultural Studies at Hanyang University, South Korea. Their co-authored book, North Korea: Beyond Charismatic Politics, was published in 2012 by Rowman & Littlefield.

Recommended citation: Heonik Kwon and Byung-Ho Chung, "North Korea's Partisan Family State," The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 10, Issue 28, No. 1, July 9, 2012.

As it aims to reduce fossil-fuel use, the country is investing heavily in wind and solar energy. Gansu province, once known for dirty mines and oil wells, is being revitalised. Watts examines the wide-ranging innovations in one of China's poorest provinces. Where will such environmentally-directed efforts fit in the context of the nation's breakneck industrialization and automobilization? Robert Marks examines the Gansu experiment in light of China's development priorities.  

Jonathan Watts is the Guardian's Asian environment correspondent.  

Robert B. Marks is Richard and Billie Deihl Professor of History at Whittier College. He is the author of China: Its Environment and History (2012), The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Ecological Narrative from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-first Century (2007).  

Recommended citation: Jonathan Watts with a comment by Robert Marks, "China's Green Power Experiment: Whither the Environment," The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 10, Issue 28, No. 3, July 9, 2012.