Dissertation•
Nationalism in Japan’s contemporary foreign policy: a consideration of the cases of China, North Korea, and India
01 Feb 2013-
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored how political actors manipulated the concept of nationalism in foreign policy discourse and explored how the two administrations both used nationalism but in the pursuit of contrasting policies: an uncompromising stance to China and a conciliatory approach toward North Korea under the Koizumi administration, a hardline attitude against North Korea and the rapprochement with China by Abe, accompanied by a friendship-policy toward India.
Abstract: Under the Koizumi and Abe administrations, the deterioration of the Japan-China
relationship and growing tension between Japan and North Korea were often interpreted as
being caused by the rise of nationalism. This thesis aims to explore this question by looking at
Japan’s foreign policy in the region and uncovering how political actors manipulated the
concept of nationalism in foreign policy discourse. The methodology employs discourse
analysis on five case studies. It will be explored how the two administrations both used
nationalism but in the pursuit of contrasting policies: an uncompromising stance to China and
a conciliatory approach toward North Korea under the Koizumi administration, a hard-line
attitude against North Korea and the rapprochement with China by Abe, accompanied by a
friendship-policy toward India. These case studies show how the nationalism is used in the
competition between political leaders by articulating national identity in foreign policy.
Whereas this often appears as a kind of assertiveness from outside China, in the domestic
context leaders use nationalism to reconstruct Japan’s identity as a ‘peaceful nation’ through
foreign policy by highlighting differences from ‘other’s or by achieving historic reconciliation.
Such identity constructions are used to legitimize policy choices that are in themselves used to
marginalize other policy options and political actors. In this way, nationalism is utilized as a
kind of political capital in a domestic power relationship, as can be seen by Abe’s use of
foreign policy to set an agenda of ‘departure from the postwar regime’. In a similar way,
Koizumi’s unyielding stance against China was used to calm discontents among right-wing
traditionalists who were opposed to his reconciliatory approach to Pyongyang. On the other
hand, Abe also utilized a hard-line policy to the DPRK to offset his rapprochement with
China whilst he sought to prevent the improved relationship from becoming a source of
political capital for his rivals. The major insights of this thesis is thus to explain how Japan’s
foreign policy is shaped by the attempts of its political leaders to manipulate nationalism so as
articulating particular forms of national identity that enable them to achieve legitimacy for
their policy agendas, boost domestic credentials and marginalize their political rivals.
Citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, Whiting argues that Sino-Japanese relations are vulnerable to Chinese images based on bitter memories of Japanese aggression combined with misperceptions of Japanese politics and society as well as provocative remarks by Japanese officials.
Abstract: What influence does the history of Japanese aggression in China have on Chinese images of and policies toward Japan today? Is Chinese acrimony and assertiveness toward Japan in the latter 1980s the product of calculated bargaining pressure or compulsive emotional nationalism? And what are the prospects for Sino-Japanese relations: increased political alignment or continued instability and friction? These are among the questions Allen Whiting, a leading scholar of Chinese foreign relations, addresses in this book. Working largely from interviews and from an examination of the Chinese media, Whiting finds that Chinese policy toward Japan embodies an uneasy tension between hostile imagery and pragmatic interest, manifest in increasing tension during the years 1982-1987. He challenges the commonplace assumptions that post-Mao Chinese foreign policy is pragmatically determined by economic and strategic calculations. Instead, Whiting argues that Sino-Japanese relations are vulnerable to Chinese images based on bitter memories of Japanese aggression combined with misperceptions of Japanese politics and society as well as provocative remarks by Japanese officials. These images are transmitted to younger generations by Chinese mass media with little challenge from more informed governmental and academic specialists. He concludes that, although there is an increased sophistication in the Chinese understanding of the United States and the Soviet Union, this is not yet evident in the case of Japan.
1 citations
01 Jan 2011
1 citations
01 Jan 2018
TL;DR: This paper reviewed the diplomatic approach instrumentalized by the government of Japan under Prime Minister Koizumi to prevent the likeliness of the North Korea's nuclear development program to harm the territory and the citizens of Japan.
Abstract: Ketegangan nuklir yang bersumber dari program pengembangan nuklir dan rudal Korea Utara menyiratkan perilaku berbahaya dan mengancam. Studi ini meninjau pendekatan diplomatik yang diinstruksikan oleh pemerintah Jepang di bawah Perdana Menteri Koizumi untuk mencegah kemungkinan program pengembangan nuklir Korea Utara untuk membahayakan wilayah dan warga Jepang. Penulis mencoba memahami inisiatif tersebut dengan meninjau implementasi kebijakan luar negeri dan berfokus pada proses pengambilan keputusan kebijakan luar negeri yang dikelola melalui pengumpulan data sekunder dan teori multiple autonomous actors, yang melibatkan formulasi pembentukan konsensus yang dihasilkan dari kontestasi dengan serangkaian keterlibatan aktor birokrasi terdiri dari Perdana Menteri Koizumi dan Kantei, MOFA, Kabinet, LDP, Diet, kelompok kepentingan, dan Perdana Menteri Koizumi sebagai aktor utama dan kepala eksekutif, dan inisiatif tersebut bukanlah merupakan klaim pilihan independen Koizumi. Penelitian ini penting untuk menganalisis dan mengidentifikasi setiap peran birokrasi dan sikap terhadap ancaman dan bagaimana pemerintah Jepang mengambil kebijakan diplomatik tertentu dan bukan kebijakan yang lain oleh era Koizumi. Selain itu, penelitian ini mengeksplorasi pencapaian dan implikasi dari diplomasi pelopor.
The nuclear tension sourced upon North Korea's nuclear and missile development programs implies to dangerous and threatening behavior. This study reviews the diplomatic approach instrumentalized by the government of Japan under Prime Minister Koizumi to prevent the likeliness of the North Korea's nuclear development program to harm the territory and the citizens of Japan. The author attempts a better understanding of the initiative by reviewing foreign policy implementations and focuses on the foreign policy decision-making process managed through secondary data collection and theory of multiple autonomous actors, which involved consensus-building formulation resulted from the contestations by set of engaging bureaucratic actors consisted of Prime Minister Koizumi and the Kantei, the MOFA, the Cabinet, the LDP, the Diet, the interest groups, and Prime Minister Koizumi as the leading actor and the chief executive, instead of Koizumi's independent choice claims. The research is important to acknowledge and identify each bureaucratic roles and stances towards the threat and how Japan's government taken the particular policy of diplomatic and not another by the era of Koizumi. Additionally, the research explores achievements and implications of the pioneered remarkable diplomacy.
References
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Book•
01 Jan 1983
TL;DR: In this paper, Anderson examines the creation and global spread of the 'imagined communities' of nationality and explores the processes that created these communities: the territorialisation of religious faiths, the decline of antique kingship, the interaction between capitalism and print, the development of vernacular languages-of-state, and changing conceptions of time.
Abstract: What makes people love and die for nations, as well as hate and kill in their name? While many studies have been written on nationalist political movements, the sense of nationality - the personal and cultural feeling of belonging to the nation - has not received proportionate attention. In this widely acclaimed work, Benedict Anderson examines the creation and global spread of the 'imagined communities' of nationality. Anderson explores the processes that created these communities: the territorialisation of religious faiths, the decline of antique kingship, the interaction between capitalism and print, the development of vernacular languages-of-state, and changing conceptions of time. He shows how an originary nationalism born in the Americas was modularly adopted by popular movements in Europe, by the imperialist powers, and by the anti-imperialist resistances in Asia and Africa. This revised edition includes two new chapters, one of which discusses the complex role of the colonialist state's mindset in the development of Third World nationalism, while the other analyses the processes by which all over the world, nations came to imagine themselves as old.
25,018 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1979
7,932 citations
"Nationalism in Japan’s contemporary..." refers background in this paper
...It overwhelmingly focuses on material circumstances at the international system level as a source of explaining state behavior (Waltz 1979, Roy 2000: 168)....
[...]
5,429 citations
Book•
01 Apr 1985
TL;DR: The authors traces the genealogy of the present crisis in left-wing thought, from stifling of democracy under Marxist-Lenninism and Stalinism to the contemporary emergence of new forms of struggle and reexamines the idea of hegemony, from the formation of the idea in the writings of Lenin and Gramsci, to the expanded and discursive ideas of Foucault to posit a claim for the new possibilities of a radical democracy.
Abstract: This book traces the genealogy of the present crisis in left-wing thought, from stifling of democracy under Marxist-Lenninism and Stalinism to the contemporary emergence of new forms of struggle; and reexamines the idea of hegemony, from the formation of the idea in the writings of Lenin and Gramsci, to the expanded and discursive ideas of Foucault to posit a claim for the new possibilities of a radical democracy. This is a text for both the understanding of hegemony and for focusing on present social struggles and their significance for democratic theory.
4,968 citations
Book•
18 Aug 2002
TL;DR: Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method as discussed by the authors is a systematic introduction to discourse analysis as a body of theories and methods for social research, which brings together three central approaches, Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory, critical discourse analysis and discursive psychology, to establish a dialogue between different forms of discourse analysis often kept apart by disciplinary boundaries.
Abstract: Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method is a systematic introduction to discourse analysis as a body of theories and methods for social research. It brings together three central approaches, Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory, critical discourse analysis and discursive psychology, in order to establish a dialogue between different forms of discourse analysis often kept apart by disciplinary boundaries. The book introduces the three approaches in a clear and easily comprehensible manner, explaining the distinctive philosophical premises and theoretical perspectives of each approach as well as the methodological guidelines and tools they provide for empirical discourse analysis. The authors also demonstrate the possibilities for combining different discourse analytical and non-discourse analytical approaches in empirical study. Finally, they contextualize discourse analysis within the social constructionist debate about critical social research, rejecting the view that a critical stance is incompatible with social constructionist premises and arguing that critique must be an inherent part of social research.
3,598 citations