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"Japan has experienced a radical shift in its self-perception. Before and during World War II, Japan's Bushido militarism led to its great colonial ventures in Asia and beyond. After the humiliating defeat and inscription of a peaceful constitution by the United States however, Japan embraced a peaceful and antimilitarist identity, which was based in its war-prohibiting Constitution and the foreign policy of the Yoshida doctrine. For most of the twentieth century, this 'merchant' identity was unusually stable. Japan refrained from any power policies outside of its borders, including United Nations peacekeeping missions, and focused on economic recovery and foreign trade. In the last three decades, however, Japan's self-perception along with its foreign policy seems to have changed. Gradually, Tokyo has conducted a number of foreign policy measures as well as internal symbolic gestures that would have been unthinkable a few decades ago and that symbolize a new and more confident Japan. Japanese politicians - including the Prime Minister Abe Shinzō - have adopted a new discourse depicting pacifism as a hindrance, rather than asset, to Japan's foreign policy. Japan is at a crossroads. But while political elites and a portion of the Japanese public call for re-articulation of Japan's peaceful national identity, there are still those who cherish the long-held idea of pacifism. Kolmaš connects the dots between national identity theory and Japanese revisionism in order to better understand and predict the direction of a changing Japan"--

The Czech Journal of International Relations enters a new era. What will become of it?

AbstractAlthough Norwegian and Japanese fishermen killed almost identical numbers of whales in the last two decades, they were subject to a largely uneven attention from the international community. While Japan was significantly shamed by all actors, the attention on Norwegian whalers was much smaller. Why is that? The article first conceptualizes the gaps in contemporary shaming literature and shows that whereas lots has been written on why and how states shame, much less has been written about why some actors are shamed more and some less. To remedy that, it then adopts post-structural theoretical position and the methodology of discourse analysis to deconstruct anti-whaling campaigns against Japan and Norway. The analysis shows that whereas Japanese culture was often depicted as cruel and barbarous, and its science as faulty and illegitimate, Norway was largely spared of this discourse. I argue that this difference can be ascribed to differing identities between the Euro-American anti-whaling camp and Japan.

The article tries to understand the dynamics of Japanese national identity and Abe Shinzo's revisionism. It argues that although Abe has launched the strongest ever attack on Japanese pacifist identity, there remain institutional and emotional constraints that prohibit this change from materializing. Theoretically, it tries to reconcile social constructivist and post-structural approaches to Japan's policy change and presses forward a sedimentation model that can explain the contemporary dynamics. Methodologically, the article builds on narrative analysis – it uncovers the revisionist narratives and shows how these interact with societal pressures. This is shown on two particular case studies: Abe's push for constitutional revision and Abe's attempt to transform school education. Within these case studies, the article shows that although Abe commands strong popular support and a hugely revisionist mindset, his societal and political changes have been rather limited. (Pac Rev/GIGA)

The article aims to understand the practical relevance of Shinzo Abe's recent security changes and their role in Abe's general security strategy. It argues that although Shinzo Abe's goal is a revision of Japan's post-war security posture, there is still a plethora of legal, normative (popular) and practical constraints that prevent him from doing so. In order to illustrate these constraints, the article analyses the first practical implementation of the new security legislature: Japanese peacekeeping operation in South Sudan in 2016 through 2017.

AbstractFor the last few decades, the discipline of international relations has been littered with anarchy. Since Waltz'sTheory of International Politics, it has been assumed that states are formally equal sovereign unitary actors operating in an anarchic world system and that their identities and interests are defined by the very existence of anarchy. This article shatters this conception. It offers a 'hierarchical worldview' in order to illustrate that the very concepts of state, sovereignty, and anarchy are discursive creations inherently tied to the practice of hierarchy. I use a case study of Japanese national identity to illustrate this practice. The narratives of Japan as an autonomous and sovereign state were inextricably linked to Japan's hierarchical relationship toward Asia and the West (pre-war) and the USA (post-war). Japan's sovereignty and autonomy were then formulated within the practice of hierarchy.

The aim of this article is to interpret Tokyo's pivotal role in the Kyoto Protocol negotiations as a practice of reconstructing Japan's identity of an 'international' and 'independent' country. The text bases this argument in poststructural national identity scholarship, which believes that discursive differentiation to international forces ('others') plays a decisive role in formulating state's identity. For most parts of the post-war history, United States served as the most significant other for Japan's self construction. Japan narrated itself as a 'weak' and 'subservient' country dominated by the 'dominant' West. This narrative, however, has been significantly altered after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Japan's identity entrepreneurs began describing Japan as an 'independent' or 'normal' country, one that proactively contributes to world affairs. Tokyo's legitimization of the Kyoto Protocol was in line with this identity reconstruction. The image of a proactive environmental leader created a symbol of Kyoto that overshadowed the opponents of the Protocol, and lead Japan to ratify it albeit the United States chose to withdraw from it. Once the ratification was over, however, the practical implementation failed to comply with Japan's symbolic commitment. (Pac Rev/GIGA)

The book discusses the changing nature of Japanese foreign policy through the concepts of identity, culture and memory. A set of chapters written by established Japanese and foreign experts show the nuances of Japanese self-images and their role in defining their understanding of the world.