北韓에서의 黨-軍關係: 軍에 대한 黨의 效果的 支配構造

Party-Military Relations in North Korea: The Party's Efficient Ruling over the Military

The basic traits of North Korea's party-military relations can be summed up in two aspects. One is that the military is bound by the party as a party's army as long as North Korea remains the Workers' party state. This means that party organs are implanted at all levels of the military command. But the party organs can be recognized as political channels between the KPA and the Workers' Party. Those channels allow the military to convey its voice or interests to party politics. The other is that the military is deeply involved in politics. In particular, during Kim Jong Il's reign, the military, feeding on his military-first policy, has grown to be a fonnidable political force in North Korean political dynamics. Its influences are felt everywhere-in the palace, party, cabinet, parliament, diplomatic negotiation tables, economic sectors, to name but a few. The National Defense Commission, the supreme state organ in North Korea, has been occupied by active-duty generals since 1990. The above-mentioned two traits of party-military relations in North Korea guarantee that the military elite are able to participate in political areas frequently and function as a source of the efficient ruling structure of the party toward to the military. In any regime crisis, however, the KPA will not substitute for the party but preserve the prestige of the party as long as the Kim Jong Il regime gives the military the oppotunities of taking part in party politics. The KPA's political role can be prolonged, however, when the military stayed within the structrural shelter of the party. In conclusion, the KPA will not take the role of changing the North Korean system. In other words, the KPA will not turn against its leader, evern if in the long run North Korea will face the fate of failed state.