Japanese Foreign Policy

Abstract

Japanese foreign policy is a dynamic field of study undergoing profound changes in two main ways. First, there are the actual shifts in the foreign policies being constructed in Tokyo. Second, there is an evolution of the scholarly tools that are being used to analyze those policies. Both provide opportunities for researchers and students alike to discover deeper insights into Japan and the international system. Japan has often been painted as an outlier in applications of theories of foreign policy and international relations (IR). Hence, we have the long-standing “normal” debates permeating the scholarship on Japanese foreign policy (in other words, explorations of the degree to which Japanese foreign policy is “normal” or is becoming more “normal”). Yet, as a perceived outlier, the Japan case may actually be pointing out weaknesses in many of our theories in IR and highlighting how theories created in a “Western” context may be limited. Therefore, it is a case study that can enrich our ontological and epistemological perceptions by complicating them. When Japan became an economic superpower in the postwar era, it did not develop the comparable military capabilities that many IR theorists, particularly in the realist school of thought, predicted as the natural next step. Some theorists tried to explain this apparent puzzle using constructivist frameworks, such as norms and identity. They talked about Japan’s pacifism, antimilitarism, or nuclear allergy. Still others argued that this was a rational strategic choice by Japan in keeping with defensive realism or a realist/liberalist combo. With Japan’s enhanced focus in the post–Cold War era on security and building military capabilities, scholars used this development as evidence to support that they were always correct in their frameworks or to argue that external and/or internal circumstances have altered so that new frameworks need to be used to explain these changes. Some began to talk of the malleability of identity and to reject any notion of static norms. This bibliography seeks to take into account both the scholarly heritage upon which current research rests and the new directions in incorporating a diversity of actors, institutions, and interpretations into our understanding of Japanese foreign policy. In doing so, several broad themes emerge across the sections of this bibliography. One is how, although history can constrain one’s foreign policy, it can also create opportunities for the development of distinctive policymaking tools.