The Weakening of Social Control in North Korea since the Arduous March: The Case of Physical Education

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article shows how much the North Korean regime’s control over its people’s bodies has weakened as a result of the loosening of micro-power since the ‘Arduous March’ of the late 1990s. To track these types of micro-level change, the study uses Foucault’s disciplinary power and historico-critical ontology to explore the disciplinary power that has been exercised through physical education (PE) classes in North Korean schools for more than 70 years. According to Foucault, modern states have instituted networks of disciplinary power in their societies to control their people, using the political technique of the body. This type of power is directed at everyday life through social practices. By drawing on primary sources regarding PE in North Korea and on seven interviews with defectors, the article illustrates that micro-power began to develop a meticulous PE network in the school system from the 1950s and mass-produced a ‘New Communist Man’ in the 1970s and 1980s. However, the Arduous March disrupted the public distribution system, and both the network of micro-power and the institutional network of PE began to loosen. Subsequently, the New Communist Man in North Korea seems to be gradually being liberated from micro-power and is less likely to internalise obedience.