The main purpose of this paper is to comtemplate the change of the political influence of DPRK's military in the Kim Jung-Il regime. The analysis focuses on a few factors: the change in the relationship between the military and the party, the raised s...
The main purpose of this paper is to comtemplate the change of the political influence of DPRK's military in the Kim Jung-Il regime. The analysis focuses on a few factors: the change in the relationship between the military and the party, the raised status of the military caused by 'Military first policy', and Kim's dynastic succession.
First of all, Kim Jung-Il has administered the crisis in the system by 'Military first policy' after Kim Il-Sung's death. The primary factors that determine the political influence of DPRK's military are the raised status of DPRK's military and the change in the relationship between the military and the party.
Kim Jung-Il's 'Military first policy', which has been planned to overcome the crisis of food shortage and financial difficulties after Kim Jung-Il's succession, leads to an increased influence of the military. DPRK has tried to manage the crisis by utilizing the military. In this process, 'Military first policy' became not only a simple slogan but also a political ideology and Kim's way of ruling the country.
Kim Jung-Il has enhanced the status of the military in the process of dominating the military. DPRK authorizes 'Dogmatic political system' When Kim Il-sung died in 1994, Kim Jung-Il, who was in jeopardy both internally and externally, had no choice but to strengthen the military to stabilize the system.
As been discussed so far, DPRK's Kim Jung-Il has successfully achieved to solidify a stable regime under the doctrine of Military First Policy, adopted after the late Kim Il-Sung's death. As a logical consequence of Kim Jung-Il's 'Military Fist Policy', its military officials were experiencing the rise of their status in the government, and military elites seized much coveted positions within government agencies. Despite the reinforced influence of the military officials, it is not clear whether the reverse in relationship between the party and the military will in fact lead up to a perceivable change of clout over policy making. In other words, expansion of military authority is largely due to increased outside activities which does not necessarily imply greater political power, and it is assessed to be rather limited to military affairs.
According to the political structure of DPRK, the top leaders of the military shares concomitant high position in the party. While they represent the military within the party, they also act as the party's proxy to the military. Consequently, strengthened power among the military elites, in turn, results in maintained ruling structure due to their overlap in party position. However, there are possibilities that these military officials who also hold seats within the party do exert asymmetrical power compared to their counterparts.
Nevertheless, given that DPRK is a undemocratic and secluded regime there is no one person or single group that exercises greater power in decision making than Kim Jung-Il. Therefore, Kim Jung-Il's aides and political elite groups maintain their vested power in the process of making decisions.
Additionally, the DPRK's military authorities are seeing their rank ascending among the 'Joosuk dan' as well as seizing more core political positions. However, these do not equally translated into rising of political ranking. Despite the 1998 constitutional amendment which in fact solidified the authority of the National Defense Committee, it only delegated more power to Kim Jung-Il. Meanwhile, under Kim Jung-Il's mandate all bureaucratic bodies including 'People's Power Bureau' and 'General Politics Bureau' were reorganized into a parallel structure which brought about mutual competition and oversight. Strengthened role of the military in supporting economy and controling social affairs is largely due to increase in size rather than strengthened political power.
There have also been speculations that the party's function and hegemony are weakening with respect to the party - military relationship. Nevertheless, hegemony exerted by the party was not diminished, and the party's authority to provide guidance and control is sustained as the 'General Political Bureau' executes the proper means. In reality, the military is still under the whim of Kim Jung-Il and military officials appointed to the party's committees can be considered as mere objects utilized to control the military. Kim Jung-Il does not possess any intention to shake up the current stable balance of the regime by strengthening the military's authority.
In the light of Yong-byun nuclear test and South Korea-DPRK's cooperation, the military was observed to their strides only to specializing military roles.
Therefore, despite the much emphasized 'Military First policy' political structure that centers around Kim Jung-Il merely enables the military to achieve limited power. The military is expanding its roles strictly pertaining to military affairs and remains to be a supporting branch of the Kim Jung-Il's regime.