Last Week: Japan’s historical development

• Japan as a tributary of China under the T’ang dynasty, AD 618-906 (Chinese world order)

• Sakoku-jidai Tokugawa era (1600-1868)• Rising industrial power - victory in Russo-Japanese

War, 1904-5 (Imperial world order)• Militarism and colonialism (World War II) • Anti-militarism and bilateralism post-1945 (Cold War order)• Normalization, multilateralism post-Cold War, but

continued reliance upon bilateralism towards greater proactivity independence under Abe?

Unit 3. Explanation of Japan's international relations:

structure, agency and norms

Prof. Glenn Hook

Aim• to introduce structure, agency and norms

as the key conceptual tools at the heart of the theoretical approach adopted to Japan’s international relations as ‘normal’

Objectives

1) to discuss in what ways the approach adopted differs from

other approaches to the study of Japan’s international

relations;

2) to demonstrate how structure, agency and norms can

be used to explain Japan’s international relations;

3) to illustrate through examples how structure, agency

and norms can be used to explain Japan’s

international relations.

The Approach: how does it differ from other approaches to the study of Japan’s international relations?

• An eclectic approach which draws upon the collective insights and strengths of four traditions in the study of international relations, whilst striving to overcome their individual shortcomings and weaknesses

(combining elements of realism, liberalism, constructivism and policy making studies with IPE)

The political globe: its interactions can be understood in terms of structure, agency and norms

Explaining Japan’s international relations: structure, agency and norms

• International structures: states, institutions and regional frameworks

• Bipolarity and multi-polarity

• Constraints and opportunities

International Structure

Agency: Key actors and policy makers

Domestic and international norms

Anti-militarism Bilateralism

Domestic agency• Policy making models: central

bureaucracy, big business (zaikai) and the governing party (tripartite elite model)

• MOFA, MOF and METI

• The Prime Minister and the Kantei

The influence of catch-all party politics and business

• Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)

• Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)

• Business community

Japan’s National Diet and Bank of Japan

Other political parties• Social Democratic Party of Japan• People’s New Party• Kōmei Party• Liberal Party• Japan Communist Party

Domestic Society

• Mass Media• Think Tanks• Academic Community• Sub-state political authorities• Pressure groups, non-governmental

organizations, social movements and public opinion

Japan’s multiple domestic agents

Norms• Internationally embedded norms:

Bilateralism, Asianism, Trilateralism, Internationalism

• Domestically embedded norms: Anti-militarism, Developmentalism, Economism

Reactivity and Proactivity: how structure, agency and norms can be used to

explain Japan’s international relations

• Reactivity and immobilism

• Proactivity

• Normal reactivity and proactivity of the Japanese state

Normal modes of instrumentalization

• Crisis and long-term policy-making

• Formal, informal and proxy channels

• Sources of quiet diplomacy

• Cultural determinism?

• Unilateral, bilateral and multilateral levels

Instrumentalizing policy• Primacy of economic power

• State and TNC’s combined use of economic power as both “carrot” and “stick” to induce cooperative behavior

• Continuation of seikei bunri (China, Burma)

• Inter-reliance with the US and China

Conclusion: key elements and variables of structure, agency and norms

• Structure, agency and norms can be used in combination to provide a distinct, eclectic theoretical approach which can explain Japan’s international relations;

• Key elements: structure of the international system, agency of leading actors, norms which inform actions;

• Changing structure, from bipolar to multipolar and back again(?), increasing agency of the Prime Minister, pre-eminence of bilateralism internationally and antimilitarism domestically