Japan’s Foreign and Security Policy under Abe: from neoconservatism and neoautonomy to pragmatic realism

Abstract

Using Samuels’ [(2007). Securing Japan: The current discourse. The Journal of Japanese Studies, 33(1), 125–152] political categories of Japanese perspectives on strategic policy, this article argues that the nation’s foreign and security policy under the leadership of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has undergone three distinct phases: a first phase of neoconservatism during his first tenure as Prime Minister from 2006 to 2007; a second period when he returned to the office of Prime Minister five years later in 2012 that can be described as neoautonomous; and a third phase of pragmatic realism from 2015 to 2016. In addition, this article analyses the factors driving change from one phase to another. By adopting an eclectic approach to theory, it claims that each traditional theory in the field of International Relations (IR) offers different but complementary causal effects to shifts in security and foreign policies. Each IR theory emphasizes or downplays these four factors: actors, structures, material forces and ideas. This article will employ all three IR traditional theories as they relate to these factors to discern the change factors of Abe’s foreign policy. Finally, it concludes by siding with those scholars who assert that Japan’s foreign policy has made a consequential break from its past and has embarked on a new path towards a remilitarization of its foreign and security policy.