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Identity Change and Foreign Policy
Identity has become an explicit focus of International Relations theory in the past two to three decades, with one case attracting and puzzling many early identity scholars: Japan. These constructivist scholars typically ascribed Japan a ‘pacifist’ or ‘antimilitarist’ identity – an identity which they believed was constructed through the adherence to ‘peaceful norms’ and ‘antimilitarist culture’. Due to the alleged resilience of such adherences, little change in Japan’s identity and its international relations was predicted. However, in recent years, Japan’s foreign and security policies have begun to change, in spite of these seemingly stable norms and culture. This bo...
Crisis Narratives, Institutional Change, and the Transformation of the Japanese State
Mired in national crises since the early 1990s, Japan has had to respond to a rapid population decline; the Asian and global financial crises; the 2011 triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and the Fukushima nuclear meltdown; the COVID-19 pandemic; China’s economic rise; threats from North Korea; and massive public debt. In Crisis Narratives, Institutional Change, and the Transformation of the Japanese State, established specialists in a variety of areas use a coherent set of methodologies, aligning their sociological, public policy, and political science and international relations perspectives, to account for discrepancies between official rhetoric and policy practice and actual percep...
Japanese Society and the Politics of the North Korean Threat
In 1998 and in 2006, North Korea conducted ballistic missile tests that landed dangerously close to Japan. In the first case, the North Korean tests provoked only Japanese alarm and severely constrained action. In the second, the tests led to unilateral economic sanctions – the first time since the end of the Second World War that Japan has used coercion against a neighboring state. What explains this dramatic shift in policy choice? Seung Hyok Lee argues that the 2006 sanctions were not a strategic response to the missile tests, but a reflection of changing public attitudes towards North Korea – the result of the shocking revelation that the North Koreans had abducted at least seventeen Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 80s and secretly held them prisoner for decades. Japanese Society and the Politics of the North Korean Threat is the first book on this development in English and a valuable case study of public opinion’s increasing influence on Japanese security policy.
The Politics of Military Force
The Politics of Military Force examines the dynamics of discursive change that made participation in military operations possible against the background of German antimilitarist culture. Once considered a strict taboo, so-called out-of-area operations have now become widely considered by German policymakers to be without alternative. The book argues that an understanding of how certain policies are made possible (in this case, military operations abroad and force transformation), one needs to focus on processes of discursive change that result in different policy options appearing rational, appropriate, feasible, or even self-evident. Drawing on Essex School discourse theory, the book develo...
Engagement with North Korea
Examines how and why nations have persuaded North Korea to cooperate on topics such as nuclear policy.
Japan's China Policy
Japan's China Policy understands Japan's foreign policy in terms of power - one of the most central concepts of political analysis. It contributes a fresh understanding to the subject by developing relational power as an analytical framework and by applying it to significant issues in Japan's China policy: the negotiations for a bilateral investment protection treaty and the disputed Pinnacle (Senkaku/Diaoyu) Islands. Hagström demonstrates that Japan exerted power over China in such divergent empirical settings for the most part by using civilian instruments positively, defensively and through non-action. Given that Japan's foreign policy is often portrayed rather enigmatically in terms of power, the unique contribution of Japan's China Policy is to demonstrate how to analyze power aspects of Japan's foreign policy in a more coherent fashion. This revealing approach to Japan's foreign policy will be of huge interest to anyone studying Japanese politics, foreign policy or international relations.
Lessons of Transformation for Korean Unification
Twenty-five years have passed since the system transformation initiated from Central and Eastern Europe in 1989. Since then, studies of social science have focused more on the external phenomenon that caused the collapse of the socialist system. Immediately after building the system, much attention was centered around the ‘revolution of a society and the establishment of the system,’ until it was replaced by the ‘maintenance of the system.’ The disintegrated socialist system was a part of living mechanism that was introduced to manage human societies in the former Soviet Union, including Central and Eastern European countries. The living mechanism has endured in a collective manner t...
Southeast Asian Affairs 2014
"e;Southeast Asian Affairs is the only one of its kind: a comprehensive annual review devoted to the international relations, politics, and economies of the region and its nation-states. The collected volumes of Southeast Asian Affairs have become a compendium documenting the dynamic evolution of regional and national developments in Southeast Asia from the end of the 'second' Vietnam War to the alarms and struggles of today. Over the years, the editors have drawn on the talents and expertise not only of ISEAS' own professional research staff and visiting fellows, but have also reached out to tap leading scholars and analysts elsewhere in Southeast and East Asia, Australia and New Zealand, N...
Bridging Troubled Waters
The territorial dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands has repeatedly strained Sino-Japanese relations. Bridging Troubled Waters reminds us that the tensions over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands are only a part of a long history of both conflict and cooperation in maritime relations between Japan and China. James Manicom examines the cooperative history between China and Japan at sea and explains the conditions under which two rivals can manage disputes over issues such as territory, often correlated with war. The author advances an approach that offers a trade-off between the most important stakes in the disputed maritime area with a view to establishing a stable maritime order in the East China Sea.
