One of the least understood countries in the world, North Korea has long been known for its repressive regime. Yet it is far from being an impenetrable black box. Media flows covertly into the country, and fault lines are appearing in the government’s sealed informational borders. Baek will describe how information has been illicitly flowing into North Korea, and what kinds of impact this unprecedented access to foreign information is having on North Korean citizens’ social and political attitudes towards the regime and each other. For the first time, Baek will briefly discuss her organization’s work, and invite feedback for some strategic questions from the attendees at the Changing Character of War event.

Jieun Baek is a doctoral candidate in public policy at Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government where she is studying the factors that motivate first movers of dissent in Burma, and potential causal pathways that lead to dissent escalation. She is the author of North Korea’s Hidden Revolution: How the Information Underground is Transforming a Closed Society (Yale University Press), and is the founder/director of Lumen.org. She did her bachelors and masters in public policy at Harvard University.

A light sandwich lunch is served at 12.50pm. All are welcome.