The Anatomy of Chaju Kukpang: Military-Civilian Convergence in the Development of the South Korean Defense Industry under Park Chung Hee, 1968-1979

Abstract

Based on empirical study of newly declassified sources from South Korea, the dissertation examines the Park Chung Hee regime’s (1961-1979) policies related to chaju kukpang, or “self-reliant national defense,” from the late-1960s through the 1970s. In response to North Korea’s provocations in 1968 and the US reduction of troops stationed in South Korea in 1971, the Park regime masterminded an independent military modernization program in which citizens and civilian industries, functioning as the de facto engine of domestic arms production, propelled the emergence of a military-industrial complex. The study examines how regime policies mobilized Korean citizens for the effort and how civilian actors eventually responded by personally investing to fulfill this national project. The author observes that the state transformed civilians through both super-structural and infrastructural processes, as Park’s policies steered both the industrial capacities and the consciousness of the Korean populace along a path toward security independence. The total mobilization effort proceeded through complex mergers, tensions, and negotiations of state goals with civilian ideological and material interests, ultimately forging chaju kukpang as a bona fide national movement. The story of ROK defense industry development offers a prism through which the interplay of polity and society in the course of Korea’s modernization can be reexamined, with an eye to refining prevalent theories and suggesting implications for future research on the Park era.