This thesis traces the history of Conscientious Objection and draft evasion from the introduction of the Universal Male Conscription system in 1949 to the end of the authoritarian dictatorship period in 1993. I especially focus on the persecution and stigmatization of religious Conscientious Objector groups such as the South Korean Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Seventh-day Adventists. The negative labeling of these Conscientious Objectors as social deviants is part of an initiative led by the South Korean state to solidify Universal Male Conscription as a social norm. This process was supported by the implementation of a national surveillance system as well as the intensification of a nation-wide crackdown on draft evasion, which was viewed indifferently from Conscientious Objection. Thus, this project reveals the ostracization of Conscientious Objection as well as the normalization of Universal Male Conscription as an interconnected issue that came to be perpetuated throughout South Korean History.

This thesis traces the history of Conscientious Objection and draft evasion from the introduction of the Universal Male Conscription system in 1949 to the end of the authoritarian dictatorship period in 1993. I especially focus on the persecution and stigmatization of religious Conscientious Objector groups such as the South Korean Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Seventh-day Adventists. The negative labeling of these Conscientious Objectors as social deviants is part of an initiative led by the South Korean state to solidify Universal Male Conscription as a social norm. This process was supported by the implementation of a national surveillance system as well as the intensification of a nation-wide crackdown on draft evasion, which was viewed indifferently from Conscientious Objection. Thus, this project reveals the ostracization of Conscientious Objection as well as the normalization of Universal Male Conscription as an interconnected issue that came to be perpetuated throughout South Korean History.