This article is designed to apply the internal approach of understanding and interpreting the phenomenon by the ideology and logic of basic politics in Kim Jong Il regime, namely, Seongu Jungchi(Military-First Politics), Juche Idea and militarism mixe...
This article is designed to apply the internal approach of understanding and interpreting the phenomenon by the ideology and logic of basic politics in Kim Jong Il regime, namely, Seongu Jungchi(Military-First Politics), Juche Idea and militarism mixed with the external approach of understanding the phenomenon by the value criteria of generalities. For this to happen, this article focused on the interpretation and analysis which intensively analyze and interpret the various literatures, dissertations and data relevant to North Korea. As our point of view from the generalities, that is, the external approach to understand North Korea based on the methodology of capitalism may result in the errors from the initial stage of research by denying the social ruling system of Kim Jong Il regime, this article used the internal approach to get over this problem and kept a critical view by the external approach to resolve the problem of the internal approach. Though the internal approach is valid to totally understand the Kim Jong Il regime, it also gets a harsh criticism that says it one-sided interpretation or overstated interpretation for a 'positive' aspect of North Korean system, as well as dodging or silence with the lack of critical attitude for the explanation of a 'negative' aspect. Thus, to understand the status and role consolidation of the Army under Kim Jong Il regime, this article firstly analyzed the logic system of Seounggun Junchi of Kim Jong Il's political way, and then used the external approach which criticizes this from the external view.
For the scope of this study, it analyzed the perception of a conceptual regulation of political army officers affiliated to the forces, the political power of military, the military clique as an instrumental role, the relation between Seounggun Junchi and Gangsungdaeguk(strong and prosperous country), Kim Jong Il's ruling method of the military clique expanding by the idea, the hierarchical relation and consolidation of political decision power between the officials of the private and those of the military clique as the status and role of the army, with the analysis of the status and role of the army under Kim Jong Il regime as well as looked at the power succession, the role of military, and the state after the succession.
This article consists of totally 6 chapters under the title of "A Study on the Status and Role of Army under Kim Jong Il's Era". In the chapter I, it covers the study objectives, method and coverage and in the Chapter II, it analyzes the adverse effect of Juche Idea and the crisis of 'socialism in one's own way' as Gangsungdaeguk of Kim Jong Il's regime, as well as evaluates Seounggun Junchi analyzing its limitations.
In the chapter Ⅲ, it identifies the symbiotic relationship that the parties and military coexist under Kim Jong Il's regime and the uniqueness between both groups in the history of division in explaining the relation between the military and political parties with Gangsungdaeguk Idea. It also explains the role of parties, the role of military, and the relation between the parties and military under Kim Jong Il's regime, particularly analyzing the structural characteristics of parties and military within the power system of Kim Jong Il's regime. Based on this, it examines a consolidation of military and a relative weakness of parties. In the chapter Ⅳ, it identifies the military status and changes in the hierarchy by arranging the result of a field governance of Kim Jong Il in the military sector with the analysis of changes in the military status and the consolidation of its political decision power. It also examines the role of military as a social control, financial development, and maintaining system among the roles under Kim Jong Il's regime, while it explores how Kim Jong Il rules over the expanded military organization in the order of the party ruling within the army, the ruling by the intelligence agency, and the ruling by the parallel command system.
In the chapter Ⅴ, it identifies and analyzes the cases of the political decision power of the army along with a case analysis of the political decision power of the army and military consolidation under Kim Jong Il's regime from the future view. And in the paragraph 4, the last part of chapter V, it predicts the outlook of Kim Jong Eun era who emerged as a successor to Kim Jong Il after the Labor party's council meeting on September 2010 and surveys what roles the military will play in the process of the power succession. In the last chapter Ⅵ, it sums up the above contents and draws a conclusion.