Defining the Nature and Future of the Party–Military Relations in North Korea

Abstract

Since Kim Jong-il officially launched his Songun politics in 1998, conflicting assessments have generated two competing arguments regarding the political role of the Korean People’s Army (KPA). The military garrison state argument suggests that Songun politics brought about the decline of the party and political ascendance of the military, while the party’s army model argues that the KPA is still the party’s army and under the party’s firm control. This article suggests that the debate mischaracterizes the KPA’s political place in North Korea and that the military has not been a politically influential organ from the state-building to the current Kim Jong-un era. This article identifies two distinct patterns of military control mechanisms—namely partisan (1960s–1990s) and personalistic (1998–2008)—and argues that the different control methods have little to do with the KPA’s political strength or weakness. Rather, they merely reflect the dictator’s ruling method of choice for regime survival. The analysis illustrates that the current Kim Jong-un regime is more stable than many outside observers may estimate, and a military coup is highly unlikely in the near future.

Why North Korea Could Not Implement the Chinese Style Reform and Opening? The Internal Contradiction Between Economic Reform and Political Stability

“…2 Concerning North Korea’s domestic issues, scholars have paid much attention to the political aspect of the Kim family regime’s survival strategy, such as how the Kim family regime has effectively developed the coup-proof mechanism and prevented popular uprising in North Korea. (Byman & Lind, 2010; Cha & Anderson, 2011; Grice, 2017; Yeo, 2017) Woo explains how the Kim family regime controls the Korea People’s Army through the influence of the Korea Workers’ Party (Woo, 2018). Scholars also dealt with North Korea’s economic issues, but the comparative study of North Korea’s economy with China or Vietnam have been published in the format of op-ed or policy report, lacking in-depth analysis for rigorous and systematic comparison (Dollar, 2019; Grossman et al, 2019; Haggard & Noland, 2019; Marumoto, 2007; Silberstein, 2019;).…”