NKIDP e-Dossier No. 7, "East German Documents on Kim Il Sung’s April 1975 Trip to Beijing," is introduced by Ria Chae and showcases four East German documents which provide new evidence on on Kim Il Sung’s 1975 visit to Beijing and demonstrate Kim’s changing unification strategy and his increasingly distant relationship with China in the mid-1970s. more

According to U.S. and EU officials, transatlantic coordination, communication and cooperation is excellent, and has improved substantially over the last few years. Meetings between the EU, U.S. State Department and OSCE officials occur regularly and conversations happen on a daily basis. The most important elements of the policy toward the Western Balkans are EU led and U.S. supported. This cooperation was most apparent in the Serbia-Kosovo negotiations that were restarted this year. The U.S. has joined the EU on policies dealing with specific issues, such as women’s empowerment, economic development and housing for refugees and internally displaced people. The overall policy of Euroatlantic integration is openly supported not only in Washington and Brussels, but also by civil society: opinion polls consistently reveal that EU accession is what the people of the region want. more

A key question popping up in 2011 will very likely continue to shape policy discussions and debates in the Western Balkans in 2012: why doesn’t the “magnetic pull” of Europe seem to be resulting in reform and progress in Bosnia and Herzegovina? The “transformative power” thesis that grounds the European Union’s engagements in pre-accession countries is predicated on the assumption that the promised riches of membership will drive domestic leaders in any EU-hopeful country to align their country’s policies and practices with the norms required by the Club.[1] The wave of accession over the past decade is used as an illustration of the success of this model. Poland, Hungary and Malta benefitted from the technical rigors of EU accession preparation, followed not so long after by even Bulgaria and Romania. Surely this process promotes and results in the political, social and economic change desired to preserve and expand the European experiment, and to move towards an “ever closer union.” more

Democracy and legitimacy are closely linked. Legitimacy to govern is tested through elections, of course, but the challenge should not end there: throughout their terms, politicians’ legitimacy is linked to their ability to adhere to constitutional and legal constraints. State institutions are similarly held to account. Courts must ensure that remedies are provided to disputing parties and all cases are judged fairly; the legislature must operate according to predetermined rules for adopting laws; ministries must follow their protocols; and all of the branches of government must operate under the checks and balances envisioned by the Constitution. The media, oversight institutions, opposition political parties and NGOs maintain a careful watch on leaders and state institutions to ensure that people with power continue to operate within the law. In a democracy, maintaining legitimacy is as important as the elections themselves. more