This study aims to genealogically follow how universalization of the military obligation has been pursued and realized in South Korea. It analyzes the institutions and discourses involved in conscription and examines the momentum to and justification ...
This study aims to genealogically follow how universalization of the military obligation has been pursued and realized in South Korea. It analyzes the institutions and discourses involved in conscription and examines the momentum to and justification of universalization of the military obligation in the period from establishment of coldwar divided systems to post-cold war democratization. The results are as follows.
Outbreak of Korean war and ‘post-cold war disposal’ of delayed military mobilization had led to massive troops and the formation of early condition of conscription operation based on burdens of soldiers themselves. The number of soldiers surged from 100,000 before Korean war to at most 720,000 after the war. Even after armistice, the government had insisted to hold massive troops on the excuses of ‘Korean-American alliance’ and ‘military aid’. It, however, had resulted in sacrificing the general public, who became military resources. Meanwhile, there had been discriminations based on education and class in distributing these ‘sacrifices’. Perspective soldiers with military obligation had considered military service as burden and ‘sacrifice’ because conscription had required longer services than stated in the law, premised on discriminative application of the military burden.
The military service in Korea had been universalized in the discursive practice and the institutional implementation where perspective soldiers had been expanded to include neutral ‘population’ by applying the notion of military ‘substitution’. In 1960s, obligated ‘work’ was suggested in ‘substitution’ for military service as means of social relief of those with military obligation ‘incomplete’. The notion of ‘substitution’ for military service, however, had been substantially institutionalized in the late 1960s and early 1970 with the aid of increased security crisis. With ‘1.21 accident’ in 1968 as a stimulus, ‘defensive mobilization’ for ‘homeland defense’ had been situated within the military obligation by Park Jung-Hee’s government. Starting with it, duties in various fields including policing and economic activities had been institutionalized as obligation ‘substituting’ the military services. As such, the concept of ‘substitution’ for the military obligation had been institutionalized on the basis of governmental discursive and institutional practices seeking to include the economic development into the field of military security and national defense. Korean government also had founded the Military Manpower Administration to lay the administrative foundation for the military mobilization, hunted down draft evaders to realize ‘social justice’ and forced all the perspective soldiers to serve the obligation. It implies that working of bio (administrative) power which had an effect on expanding the notion and target of ‘military obligation’, adjusting the scope of obligation ‘incomplete’, along with working of surveillance and discipline which regarded enlistment as national duty, had played an effective part in universalizing the military obligation.
In the period of post-war democratization, the paradox of ‘strengthening’ conscription has happened from increasing demand for equality, along with the continued notion of ‘substitution’ for the military service. While perspective soldier population has decreased in 1990s, the number of ‘active-duty’ soldiers has increased. It resulted from the fact that shortening the term of service has led to ‘naturally’ increased soldiers and abolishing previous defensive mobilization scheme has allowed the number of ‘active-duty’s to embrace reservist duty. Defensive mobilization scheme, which had been a duty of ‘substitution’ for active-duty service in the military security field, has been abolished and public service worker scheme has newly been introduced for the public and administrative purpose. It means that the institutionalization of the concept of ‘substitution’ for military service, which had been justified on the ground of ‘self-defence’ in the era of coldwar, has inherited previous legacy that one should contribute to ‘nation’ through ‘substitution’ obligation, even in the era of post-cold war democratization. In the meantime, global post-cold war and advanced democratization in the society provoked the increased demand for equality by citizens excluded or exempted from the military service. With enforcement of Act for Gender Equal Employment in1988, ‘women’, as typical ‘exempts from the military service’, started to be acknowledged as regular members of labor market, and the military advantage point policy, which used to give advantages for men who fulfilled their own military duty when they tried to enter labor market, had been repealed 1999. These shifts have disrupted existing troops mobilization and reward system, which had enabled men who fulfilled their military duty to retain social priority through connecting labor market with the military service. The government in charge of managing the military obligation system and those to whom to fulfill the service is their own obligation have accelerated the universalization of the military service to address the disruption. First, for ‘equal’ fulfillment of the military obligation, the condition for perspective soldiers including physical, educational, and medical ones has been lowered and the scope for perspective soldiers has been adjusted and expanded. The universalization of the military service also has been seek out, based on ‘active-duty preference’ which regards active-duty as non- substitutable. It shows that post-cold war democratization has led to ‘strengthening’ conscription, with continued presence of the previous notion of ‘substitution’ for military service.
This study analyzed how the universalization of the military service has been pursued and realized from the historical and sociological perspective in Korean society. ‘Gender’ acted as a driving force and justification for universalizing it. It also has been asked not only from the government in charge of the military system but also from those with military obligation. While subjection/subjectivication process of subjects with military obligation reveals the defining power of Korean war and cold war divided systems, further accelerated pursuit of the universalization asks questions about what is ‘democratization’ and the nature of ‘cold war and division’.