What Is Juche?
Juche, officially the Juche idea, is a name of the official ideology of North Korea and its ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK). Part of the Technocratic family.
Definition
Juche, officially the Juche idea, is a name of the official ideology of North Korea and its ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK).
Definition quoted from Wikipedia: Juche (text available under CC BY-SA 4.0; checked October 20, 2026).
Core ideas
- Self-reliance.
- Supreme leadership of the leader.
- Military-first politics in later versions.
Origins
North Korea from the 1950s–1970s.
Associated thinkers and leaders
Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il
Core ideas, origins and thinkers: Atlas summary.
Where Juche sits on the Atlas maps
| Map dimension | Score (0–100) | Position | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Economic Collective / planned ↔ Market | 3 | strongly toward collective / planned | |
| Social Progressive ↔ Traditional | 85 | strongly toward traditional | |
| Authority Libertarian ↔ Authoritarian | 92 | strongly toward authoritarian | |
| National identity Cosmopolitan ↔ Nationalist | 100 | strongly toward nationalist | |
| Foreign policy Non-intervention ↔ Intervention | 97 | strongly toward intervention |
All nine underlying dimensions
| Dimension | Score | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| Economic ownership Collective ownership ↔ Private ownership | 6 | strongly toward collective ownership |
| Civil liberties Civil liberty ↔ State restrictions | 84 | toward state restrictions |
| National identity Cosmopolitan ↔ Nationalist | 100 | strongly toward nationalist |
| Social and cultural values Progressive ↔ Traditionalist | 100 | strongly toward traditionalist |
| Political governance Democratic ↔ Autocratic | 100 | strongly toward autocratic |
| Equality and hierarchy Egalitarian ↔ Hierarchical | 78 | toward hierarchical |
| Economic management Free market ↔ State planning | 100 | strongly toward state planning |
| Military intervention Non-intervention ↔ Intervention | 97 | strongly toward intervention |
| Religion and government Secular state ↔ Religious authority | 52 | near the center |
These positions are estimates on the Atlas’s nine-dimension scale, produced by running the tradition’s core principles through the same questions and scoring used for test-takers. They are interpretations for comparison, not objective measurements. How scores are made.
Estimated positions on key questions
| Statement | Position | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| A national religious authority should have the power to veto legislation. | Strongly disagrees | estimated from doctrine |
| A naturalized citizen can belong to the nation as fully as someone born there. | Strongly disagrees | estimated from doctrine |
| A single ruling party can govern more effectively than a competitive multiparty system. | Strongly agrees | estimated from doctrine |
| People should be free to criticize the government without fear of legal punishment. | Disagrees | estimated from doctrine |
| Foreign wars should be avoided unless national territory is directly threatened. | Strongly disagrees | estimated from doctrine |
| Traditional values should guide what society considers right and wrong. | Strongly agrees | estimated from doctrine |
| Markets generally distribute goods more effectively than government planners. | Strongly disagrees | estimated from doctrine |
| Major industries should be publicly owned rather than privately controlled. | Strongly agrees | estimated from doctrine |
| Society works best when established social hierarchies are respected. | Strongly agrees | estimated from doctrine |
| Differences in social status help maintain an orderly society. | Strongly agrees | estimated from doctrine |
Related ideologies
Main differences from the closest ideologies
- Compared with Stalinism, Juche sits 11 points further toward intervention on the foreign policy dimension.
- Compared with Strasserism, Juche sits 18 points further toward intervention on the foreign policy dimension.
- Compared with Ba’athism, Juche sits 30 points further toward intervention on the foreign policy dimension.
Figures with the closest estimated positions
Closeness of estimated positions only; this does not mean these people identify with Juche.
Sources
Position last reviewed: not yet reviewed individually.