Therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and de‹ciency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself the enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency. (Ibn al-Haytham)1

국제정치이론 = Theory of international politics

Cantir, Cristian and Juliet Kaarbo. (2011) Contested Roles and Domestic Politics: Reflections on Role Theory in Foreign Policy Analysis and IR Theory. Foreign Policy Analysis, doi: 10.1111/j.1743-8594.2011.00156.x

Many of the strengths of research in Foreign Policy Analysis have been overlooked by role theorists. Role theorists often assume that roles are shared across elites and masses, that elites can manipulate masses, or that public opinion on roles constrains elites. Role theorists also tend to assume that there is a consensus among elites over national roles. Research in Foreign Policy Analysis, on the other hand, demonstrates that foreign policy may be contested both vertically (between elites and masses) and horizontally (among elites) and that these conflicts affect foreign policy decision making and foreign policy behavior. We propose that (i) contested roles mean that roles and foreign policy are not as stable as is often implied; (ii) research on contested roles offers Foreign Policy Analysis a less preference-oriented way of conceptualizing policy disagreements and decision making; and (iii) structures reveal themselves as important when agents use them in domestic discourse over contested roles, but the impact of international norm and role structures is not automatic, as it is shaped by the agents (and domestic structures) in the domestic political process. We suggest that research on the strategic use of roles could bring together these benefits of examining contested roles.

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Contested Roles and Domestic Politics: Reflections on Role Theory in Foreign Policy Analysis and IR Theory

A significant post-Cold War development in Japan???s politics has been the rise of a group of hawkish security elites with substantial political and institutional influence. A common scholarly and popular narrative that has accompanied this development is that the younger generation in Japan is more open to the pursuit of security on the basis of realpolitik attitudes in particular, and that this will lead to the Japanese government abandoning its postwar antimilitarist security orientation. By systematically examining these claims, this study evaluates whether generational change will become a salient factor that will challenge Japan???s traditional antimilitarism and drive radical change in Japan???s security policy orientation. Members of the Heisei social generation, born between 1965 and 1989, are the core focus of this study. Members of this Heisei cohort witnessed significant change in Japan???s foreign and domestic policy environments during their formative years when political socialisation is likely to have the greatest impact upon attitude formation. Using the concept of militant internationalismas an analytical framework, this study evaluates quantitative data on public attitudes and primary interview data to identify any notable overlap in attitudes towards national security between the Heisei cohort and Japan???s hawkish security elites. This study rejects the militant internationalist characterisation by showing that the Heisei public cohort continues to support military restraints on Japan???s security policy and military posture. The analysis of attitudes does reveal, nevertheless, that antimilitarism is no longer an appropriate descriptive label to apply to the contemporary security identity embraced by the Heisei cohort. The assumption of Japanese having an instinctive aversion to the use of military tools for maintaining Japan???s security no longer holds, particularly in relation to the Heisei elite cohort. In deepening the analysis, this study does show, however, that a distinctive but evolved anti-war peace nation identity is still salient among both the Heisei public and elite cohorts. Such an identity will continue to play a notable role in restraining Japan???s evolution as a military actor in regional and global affairs, particularly in regards to Japan being able to use force inside the territory of other nations.

The Evolution of the Japanese Strategic Imagination and Generation Change: A Generationally-Focused Analysis of Public and Elite Attitudes towards War and Peace in Japan

This paper contributes to current debates on the politicization of international politics by examining party-political contestation of peace and security missions. It is guided by two inter-related questions, (a) to what extent deployment decisions are contested amongst political parties and (b) what drives such contestation. We examine data from a new data set on parliamentary votes on deployment decisions in France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom and from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey. Against conventional wisdom and in an effort to address the often-overlooked role of political parties, we find that military deployments have been systematically contested amongst political parties across Europe. Further, we find that contestation is driven by the left/right axis, as opposed to newer cleavages captured here by the so-called gal/tan axis. We also find evidence that patterns of contestation depend on parties’ positions in government or opposition, a factor we relate to bureaucratic and international pressures on the parties in office, and to political opportunities for opposition parties.

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Party politics at the water's edge: Contestation of military operations in Europe

PART I: FOREIGN AID AND FOREIGN POLICY - The Evolution of Japan's Aid Diplomacy and the New Aid Debate - Reaction and Action in Japan's Foreign Policy: The Context of Multilateral Diplomacy - PART II: THE NEW MULTILATERALISM - The New Multilateralism in Japan's Aid Diplomacy: The Policy Framework - Japan and the Multilateral Development Banks: The Search for a Role - The New Multilateralism: A Comparative Analysis - PART III: AID DIPLOMACY IN A NEW WORLD ORDER - The Case of the Commonwealth of Independent States, 1990-1993 - Requiem for the Reactive State?

The New Multilateralism in Japan's Foreign Policy

Japan's policy toward the 2003 Iraq War is a test of the constructivist argument about the weight of norms as opposed to material systemic factors in foreign policy making. Constructions of external threats and interests were contested between a largely realist-minded elite around prime minister Koizumi bent on Japan's remilitarization and those still holding to antimilitarist norms. This contest is traced in an analysis of the policy-making process, including the role of bureaucratic and political institutions, the opposition parties and the public. Indicative of the power of norms, Koizumi was forced to compromise his ambition to use the Iraq crisis to help make Japan a "normal" great power.

/pdf/foreign-policy-making-under-koizumi-norms-and-japan-s-role-rz27q5dwye.pdf

Foreign Policy Making Under Koizumi: Norms and Japan’s Role in the 2003 Iraq War

This study examines how Japanese policy toward Middle East security issues is shaped by the need to both maintain Japan’s security alliance with the US and its oil relationship with states in the Middle East. Yukiko Miyagi introduces the historic roots of Japan’s policy, and then focuses on the major contemporary cases – the Iraq war, the Iranian nuclear crisis, and the Arab-Israeli conflict, to expose and explain how clashing interests and dilemmas were negotiated to arrive at policy outcomes.

The author also sheds light on the utility of mainstream International Relations theories for understanding Japan’s behaviour. How do we understand the policy of a self-declared ‘anti-militarist’ state forced to operate in a realist world and for whom energy supplies are a matter of vital national security? This study shows how neither realism nor its rivals, such as constructivism, can wholly explain Japan’s behaviour and suggests a theoretical framework for doing so. 

Filling a major gap in our understanding of an increasingly important area of study Japan’s Middle East Security Policy is an essential read for those interested in Japan’s International Relations, Middle East politics, security studies and foreign policy.

Japan's Middle East Security Policy: Theory and Cases

This article looks at the trends in Japan’s Middle East policy on politico-security issues since the beginning of the 1970s. It observes that Japanese policy started with a stance sympathetic to the Palestinians and the Arab and Islamic states but shifted towards neutral and then towards more pro-US positions over time. It suggests this trend can be explained by international structural change and power shift, from a period of relatively cohesive Arab and Islamic states that had more weight vis-a-vis the US and the West towards one which saw a decline of Arab unity and the oil weapon, and a shift towards US hegemony. The paper also points out a gradual change in Japan’s main policy tool towards the Middle East, from non-military to military approaches over time. The paper argues that Japan’s clear pro-US military-activist policy seen in the Iraq war was a primary example of such changes, reflecting the afore-mentioned international changes, but also due to Japan’s domestic political conditions – an erosion of anti-militarist norm in particular; however, it also suggests that Japanese policy in the Iraq war should be understood as an exception, a product of certain special conditions.

Japan's Middle East Security Policy: Rethinking Roles and Norms

Japan's vital interests, both its energy security and US alliance, are at stake in the Middle East. Change in Japan's Middle East policy is charted over three periods, from a stance independent of the United States to one increasingly aligned with US policy. This is explained in terms of four variables: level of US hegemony, threats in East Asia, energy vulnerabilities in the Middle East, and normative change inside Japan. Japan's policy in Middle East/North Africa reflects its general move toward a more militarily enhanced version of mercantile realism.

Yukiko Miyagi

Papers

Foreign Policy Making Under Koizumi: Norms and Japan’s Role in the 2003 Iraq War

Japan's Middle East Security Policy: Theory and Cases

Japan's Middle East Security Policy: Rethinking Roles and Norms

Japan's Middle East policy : 'still mercantile realism'.

Japan’s Engagement in the Gulf