How to Make International Sanctions on North Korea Effective: Cooperation or Coercion?

This paper aims to review the theoretical discussions on economic sanctions against North Korea and come up with policy prescriptions based on this theoretical analysis. It bears mentioning in advance that this paper does not look to a rgue the e ffectivenes s of sanctions in changing North Korea s strategic calculations. Given Washington s strong belief that sanctions can change North Korea s decisions, how to effectively design and implement sanctions is fundamentally important. This paper will provide a theoretical review of why achieving that goal has proven to be difficult. At the same time, the paper will address the popular observation that the current sanctions regime i s different f rom the pas t-s ince i t evoked a different approach f rom North Korea in 2018-and discuss why it is different.