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This thesis investigates how postcolonial regimes in Taiwan and South Korea adapted militarized institutional endowments inherited from Japanese colonial rule. Drawing on the framework of Historical Institutionalism, it examines the interplay between path dependency, critical junctures, and agency through the concept of institutional bricolage. Despite similar starting conditions – moderately industrialized economies, militarized bureaucracies, and Cold War pressures – the Kuomintang (KMT) in Taiwan and Park Chung-Hee’s regime in South Korea pursued divergent strategies. The KMT integrated military structures into a Leninist party apparatus for internal consolidation, while Park mobilized military institutions to drive economic development and national integration. Through a focused comparative study, this thesis traces how each regime selectively retained and reconfigured colonial legacies in pursuit of distinct political and strategic objectives. The analysis highlights how institutional endowments constrain possibilities for action, but also how regime leaders act with agency during moments of rupture to reshape institutions for new purposes. Thus, the study contributes to broader debates on postcolonial state-building, militarized modernity, and the dynamic between inherited structures and strategic adaptation.