Identity Change and Foreign Policy

Japan and its 'Others'

Linus Hagstrom

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138931602
• eBook ISBN: 9781317394853
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Identity has become an explicit focus of International Relations theory in the past two to three decades, with one case attracting and puzzling many early identity scholars: Japan. These constructivist scholars typically ascribed Japan a 'pacifist' or 'antimilitarist' identity – an identity which they believed was constructed through the adherence to 'peaceful norms' and 'antimilitarist culture'. Due to the alleged resilience of such adherences, little change in Japan's identity and its international relations was predicted.

However, in recent years, Japan's foreign and security policies have begun to change, in spite of these seemingly stable norms and culture. This book seeks to address these changes through a pioneering engagement with recent developments in identity theory. In particular, most chapters theorize identity as a product of processes of differentiation. Through detailed case analysis, they argue that Japan's identity is produced and reproduced, but also transformed, through the drawing of boundaries between 'self' and 'other'. In particular, they stress the role of emotions and identity entrepreneurs as catalysts for identity change. With the current balance between resilience and change, contributors emphasize that more drastic foreign and security policy transformations might loom just beyond the horizon. This book was originally published as a special issue of The Pacific Review.

Japan and identity change: why it matters in International Relations

Linus Hagström and Karl Gustafsson

Abstract Two approaches to identity have been employed to explore issues in Japan’s international relations. One views identity as constituted by domestic norms and culture, and as constitutive of interests, which in turn cause behaviour. Proponents view Japan’s ‘pacifist’ and ‘antimilitarist’ identity as inherently stable and likely to change only as a result of material factors. In the other approach, ‘Japan’ emerges and changes through processes of differentiation vis-à-vis ‘Others’. Neither ‘domestic’ nor ‘material’ factors can exist outside of such identity constructions. We argue that the second, relational, approach is more theoretically sound, but begs three questions. First, how can different identity constructions in relation to numerous Others be synthesised and understood comprehensively? Second, how can continuity and change be handled in the same relational framework? Third, what is the point of analysing identity in relational terms? This article addresses the first two questions by introducing an analytical framework consisting of three mutually interacting layers of identity construction. Based on the articles in this special issue, we argue that identity entrepreneurs and emotions are particularly likely to contribute to change within this model. We address the third question by stressing common ground with the first approach: identity enables and constrains behaviour. In the case of Japan, changes in identity construction highlighted by the articles in this special issue forebode a political agenda centred on strengthening Japan militarily.

Introduction

The literature on identity and Japan’s international relations is dominated by two approaches. ‘Norm constructivists’ focus on explaining how a domestically constructed ‘pacifist’ or ‘antimilitarist’ identity influences foreign policy. The ‘relational’ approach, in contrast, concentrates on how ‘Japan’ is constructed vis-à-vis particular ‘Others’. It treats identity as reminiscent of a dependent rather than an independent variable, paying less attention to the impact of identity on behaviour or policy. In addition, some scholars have emphasised the resilience of identity, whereas others have stressed its propensity for change. All contributions to this special issue deal with these matters. The main question addressed by all articles is whether and how Japanese identity is changing. Studying identity change is important because when identity constructions change they enable and constrain behaviour in ways that differ from what was previously the case. For example, this special issue highlights that changes in Japan’s identity construction foreshadows a political agenda centred on strengthening Japan militarily. Most articles reach this conclusion by focusing on how Japanese identity is constructed in relation to a specific Other. The article written by Andrew Oros, in contrast, represents the norm constructivist position. It is included because it reflects on this position and the overall question of identity change in light of insights from the relational approach.

This introduction integrates the main contributions of the articles into a larger framework. Although we argue that the relational approach is theoretically sounder than norm constructivism, we develop a pragmatic analytical framework that nonetheless can incorporate most of Oros’ findings. The article addresses three questions. First, how can different identity constructions in relation to numerous Others be synthesised and understood comprehensively? Second, how can continuity and change be handled in the same relational framework? Third, what is the point of analysing identity in relational terms?

The first section provides a background to research on identity in International Relations (IR) and more particularly Japan’s international relations. The second one begins to examine how different findings in the special issue can be synthesised. Combined, the articles suggest that Japanese identity is constructed through the drawing of boundaries vis-à-vis several Others and in multiple contexts. We adopt a layered framework to examine how such identity constructions are maintained and how they transform (Wæver 2002). Based on the contributions to the special issue, section three suggests that two factors play particularly important roles in bringing about identity change: identity entrepreneurs and emotions. The fourth section addresses the question of why and how identities and identity change matter. We argue that the subject positions that emerge through processes of differentiation enable and constrain behaviour, and by extension foreign and security policy. The relational analysis of identity can thus be employed for a purpose strikingly similar to the one embraced by norm constructivists. A Japan constructed as ‘abnormal’ or ‘pacifist’ is thus believed to act differently from one understood as ‘normalising’ or ‘normal’. Since the discussion draws on a number of case studies, we believe that it offers a firmer basis for making predictions about the future course of Japanese foreign and security policy than each article can do individually.

Japan and identity in its international relations

With the diffusion of constructivism and post-structuralism in the past few decades, identity has become an explicit and popular focus of IR research. Yet the concept is surrounded by contestation, complaints about its alleged ‘vagueness’ and ‘slipperiness’ (Chafetz, Spirtas, and Frankel 1998: vii; Kowert 1998: 4), and even allegations of ‘definitional anarchy’ (Abdelal, Herrera, Johnston, and McDermott 2006: 695). At the same time, identity shares the predicament of its definition being contested with ‘power’, ‘culture’, ‘democracy’, ‘security’ and many other concepts in the social sciences (Berenskoetter 2010). Although some scholars see contestation as a reason to discard the concept of identity altogether, in the end they rather tend to adopt different terminology, for instance by talking about ‘identification’, ‘categorisation’, ‘self-understanding’, ‘social location’, ‘commonality’, ‘connectedness’ and ‘groupness’ (Brubaker and Cooper 2000).

Moreover, assumptions about identity are not confined to recent decades of constructivist and post-structuralist research. For instance, realist scholars tend to view the anarchical international system as moulding security or power-maximising ‘territorial states’ (Rosecrance 1986). Although this ‘status’, or identity does not allow for much differentiation between states, the unequal distribution of capabilities still leads to some states being ascribed ‘great power’ or ‘superpower’ identities (Mearsheimer 2001; Waltz 1979) while others are known as ‘middle powers’ or ‘small states’.

With its agglomeration of economic capabilities in the post-war period, Japan has commonly been ascribed the identity of an ‘economic great power/superpower’. Observers more or less explicitly influenced by realism expected the country to develop commensurate political and military power, and to become a fully fledged ‘great power’. However, when Japan failed to do so according to their estimations, the notion spread that the country was an ‘anomaly’ or ‘abnormal’ (Kennedy 1994; Layne 1993; Waltz 1993, 2000). The fact that scholars often ascribed Japan other identities than the ‘normal’ one prompted by realism – for instance, that of a ‘trading state’ (Rosecrance 1986), a ‘civilian’ power (Maull 1990/91; Funabashi 1991/92) or a ‘reactive’ and ‘defensive’ state (Calder 1988, 2003; Pharr 1993) – demonstrates exactly how central an essentialised and static ‘territorial state’/‘great power’ identity is to realist theory. It also shows how deeply embedded that identity is in scholarly, media and policy discourses on Japan’s foreign and security policy. Many observers – not all self-proclaimed realists – have continued to represent Japan as an economic ‘giant’ and a political and military ‘pygmy’ (Funabashi 1991/92; Inoguchi 1991).

The question of what kind of country Japan is has been pursued in earnest both inside and outside Japan, and not only in the literature on Japan’s international relations (Befu 2001; Dale 1986; Littlewood 1996; Morris-Suzuki 1998: 173; Oe 1995: 53; Yoshino 1992). Identity first became the explicit focus of IR research related to Japan in the 1990s. Thomas U. Berger, and Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara tried to resolve the ‘abnormality’ which they saw at the heart of Japan’s foreign and security policy by attributing to it a ‘pacifist’ or ‘antimilitarist’ identity. They did so through a focus on what they believed constituted that identity: ‘peaceful cultural norms’ (Katzenstein 1996a; Katzenstein and Okawara’s 1993) and ‘antimilitarist culture’ (Berger 1993, 1996, 1998; cf. Oros 2008). The most important contribution of these constructivists was to illuminate the often tacit identity component of much IR research on Japan. Their work demonstrated that competing ideas about what Japan is, or is on the verge of becoming, fundamentally boil down to descriptions and predictions of identity. Article 9 of the post-war constitution was key to the identity analysis of these constructivists (Berger 1998; Katzenstein 1996a, 2008). It relinquished Japan’s sovereign right to wage wars and to use force or the threat of force ‘as means of settling international disputes’, and established that ‘land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained’ (Cabinet Office 1947). The influence of the early ‘norm constructivists’ on the analysis of Japan’s international relations cannot be overestimated. A number of kindred studies have followed in their wake (Ashizawa 2008; Catalinac 2007; Oros 2008; Rozman 2012; Singh 2008).

These norm constructivists argue that identity matters primarily as a determinant of national interest, which they in turn believe to function as a source of foreign and security policy (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Hopf 2002; Katzenstein 1996b; Wendt 1999). National interest might seem like an unnecessary intervening variable here, stuck as it is between identity and behaviour. However, its place in the equation has to be understood from the perspective that IR theory has traditionally treated interests as the independent variable and behaviour as the dependent one. While in realism interests are predetermined and essentialised as physical security, liberals are open to the possibility that other interests – such as economic ones (Rosecrance 1986) – can emerge as a result of ‘bottom-up’ policy processes (Moravcsik 1997: 517). Norm constructivists, in turn, regard interests as socially constructed rather than given, and again consider norms, culture and identities as ideational ‘stuff’ involved in that social construction.

The debate between realists and these constructivists has often been framed as a struggle between essentially different independent variables – structural/material factors for the former and ideational factors in case of the latter. Since even the norm constructivists also continue to attribute explanatory weight to structural/material factors, however, the distinction is not clear-cut. Although they believe that norms and culture transform very slowly, and have thus predicted little change in Japan’s foreign and security policy (e.g. Berger 1993: 140, 147; 1998: 208; Katzenstein and Okawara 1993: 104, 118), they argue that change will eventually have to come about as a result of changing structural or material conditions (Berger 1993: 120, 1998: 209; Oros 2008: 4, cf. ibid. 172: Friman, Katzenstein, Leheny, and Okawara 2006: 85–87).

By inferring that the international system might ‘strike back’ against Japanese identity independent of the meaning inter-subjectively ascribed to whatever events are labelled as ‘shocks’, and by confining the significance of identity to that of an intervening variable, norm constructivism could be criticised for accepting the rationalist terms of debate. It could also be faulted for viewing Japan’s ‘pacifist or antimilitarist identity’ as an inherently and uniquely domestic product, thereby disregarding the notion that a ‘domestic domain’ is impossible other than in relation to an ‘international’ one.

Taken together, these points require a rather different concept of identity – a ‘relational’ understanding where demarcations between domestic and international, identity and difference, or Self and Other are exactly what constitute identity (Campbell 1994, 1998 [1992]; Connolly 1991; Neumann 1996; Rumelili 2004; Wodak, de Cillia, Reisigl, and Liebhart 2009 [1999]). The literature on Japan, which adheres to this concept, has identified a number of Others – both external ones, such as the West, Europe, the US, Asia, China, North Korea and South Korea, and internal ones, such as the outcast group at the bottom of Japan’s social order – burakumin, the ainu people (often described as ‘indigenous’), Okinawa and the Korean minority in Japan – and it has analysed how these Others have been juxtaposed with Japan to emphasise what Japan is, and hence to construct Japanese identity (Befu 2001; Bukh 2009, 2010; Guillaume 2011; Gustafsson 2011; Hagström 2014; Klien 2002; Morris-Suzuki 1998; Oguma 2002; Schulze 2013; Tamaki 2010; Tanaka 1993).

Analysing identity resilience and change: a layered model

Berger’s and Katzenstein and Okawara’s analyses predicted that Japan’s identity would remain stable, and it is true that if identity were totally fluid, it would not carry enough meaning to function as an analytical device. Notwithstanding Emanuel Adler’s contention that, ‘if constructivism is about anything, it is about change’ (Adler 2002: 102), much constructivist scholarship resembles research within other IR paradigms in that it focuses more on explaining resilience than change (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998: 888; Kowert and Legro 1996: 488). Instead of stipulating, for ontological reasons, that (Japanese) identity is fragile and provisional (Weldes, Laffey, Gusterson, and Duvall 1999: 16), or that it is fixed and stable (Chafetz, Spirtas, and Frankel 1998: x), the articles in this special issue depart from the ontology that identity’s propensity for change is an empirical one (Abdelal, Herrera, Johnston, and McDermott 2006; Brubaker and Cooper 2000).

The question of continuity and change is closely related to the issue of agency vs. structure – a debate on which much ink has been spilled, not least in IR theory (for a revealing exchange see Doty 1997, 2000; Wight 1999, 2000). One way to analyse how change and continuity relate to agency and structure within the same analytical framework is to treat identity as layered, and simultaneously constituted on mutually interacting levels of inter-subjective meaning making. In such a framework, identity change in the less institutionalised layers interacts with and builds on layers that are more institutionalised – whether they too change or not. The latter layers are more ‘fundamental’ to the extent that they are ‘more solidly sedimented and more difficult [for actors] to politicise and change’ (Wæver 2002: 31; cf. Laclau and Mouffe 1985: viii). In other words, more sedimented layers of identity construction can enable different identity constructs in less sedimented layers and even sharp turns in identity construction, but changes in the latter can also affect the former (Wæver 2002: 33–42).

We suggest that the most sedimented layer of Japanese identity construction is an understanding of Japan’s position in hierarchical terms, where Japan is constructed through its differentiation from Others, who are alternately understood as superior or inferior to Japan (cf. Hagström 2014). As Tamaki’s article in this special issue demonstrates, Japanese narratives have tended to portray Asia as inferior to Japan (cf. Tamaki 2010). A critical realist, Tamaki assumes that identity becomes resilient through reification, and he has argued elsewhere that the notion of kokutai (‘national polity’) embodies a resilient Japanese identity, namely, a ‘hierarchic worldview’ and an ‘associated sense of Japanese “uniqueness”’, which ‘can be identified within the postwar heiwa/shonin kokka [peace/trading state] narratives’ (Tamaki 2010: 62). Xavier Guillaume, who subscribes to a relational ontology, agrees that kokutai has been a ‘key narrative matrix’ in Japanese identity construction (Guillaume 2011: 63–99). Hence, there is agreement that since the s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Dedication
• 1. Japan and identity change: why it matters in International Relations
• 2. The persistence of reified Asia as reality in Japanese foreign policy narratives
• 3. Shimane Prefecture, Tokyo and the territorial dispute over Dokdo/Takeshima: regional and national identities in Japan
• 4. The North Korean abduction issue: emotions, securitisation and the reconstruction of Japanese identity from ‘aggressor’ to ‘victim’ and from ‘pacifist’ to ‘normal’
• 5. The rise of the Chinese ‘Other’ in Japan’s construction of identity: Is China a focal point of Japanese nationalism?
• 6. Identity and recognition: remembering and forgetting the post-war in Sino-Japanese relations
• 7. International and domestic challenges to Japan’s postwar security identity: ‘norm constructivism’ and Japan’s new ‘proactive pacifism’
• Index