Why study North Korea?

Why do so many academics, researchers, journalists and even politicians across the globe end up wasting time on North Korea?

Not every state can, or should, try to understand every other state on its own. For small and medium-sized states like Australia or Canada, when it comes to deeply opaque regimes such as North Korea, pursuing direct analytical insight is an exercise in futility.

Small and medium-sized states instead pursue what can be called vicarious analysis—a method that prioritizes analyzing how major regional stakeholders respond to North Korea, rather than attempting to analyze North Korea itself.

This begs the question—why then do so many academics, researchers, journalists and even politicians in these countries end up wasting time on North Korea?