David M. Potter

Japanese Foreign Policy: No Longer Reactive?:

This article revisits the thesis put forward by Kent Calder that Japans foreign policy is made by a reactive state incapable of sustained, innovative policy. Reviewing six recent books, we find that, while the reactive state thesis continues to inform scholarsip on the subject, new frameworks offer possibilities for seeing Japans foreign policy as innovative and at times strategic. This article considers the strengths and weaknesses in recent attempts to create a more proactive foreign policy.

Chinese and Japanese development co-operation: South–South, North–South, or what?

Abstract This article compares the evolution and characteristics of Chinese and Japanese aid, assessing the impact of their aid policies in sub-Saharan Africa from the 1950s to the present. It argues that China and Japans aid programmes share more similarities than dissimilarities. Both pursue aid strategies that spread allocations across a region rather than concentrating upon specific countries. The article seeks to clarify the following questions. In what way are Chinese and Japanese aid strategies different from each other and Western donors? Should their aid be seen as a form of South–South co-operation that provides an alternative to the Wests hegemony in Africa? Or is aid from these donors simply another strategy to control African resources and state elites in the guise of a partnership of equals?

Peacebuilding and the ‘Human Securitization’ of Japan’s Foreign Aid

This chapter analyses the evolution of Japan’s international security cooperation since the 1990s, based on the expansion of a security perspective within the official development assistance (ODA) programme and the parallel dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) overseas. It asks why the securitization of aid in Japan occurred the way it did and how security thinking has affected aid allocations. It assesses whether the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have used this new security thinking to expand aid activities and secure budgetary resources.

Japanese foreign disaster assistance: the ad hoc period in international politics and the illusion of a CNN effect:

Policy uncertainty is often cited as a cause of the CNN effect. In fact, many argue that an uncertain policy environment is a necessary condition for media-driven foreign policy. While the logic appears compelling, rigorous empirical analyses of the influence of the news media on Japanese foreign disaster aid allocations indicates that, as the global policy environment became more uncertain with the end of the Cold War, media influence went from being a prominent factor in foreign disaster aid allocations to being statistically insignificant. This finding is contrary to the logic of the policy uncertainty argument for media-driven foreign policy as a generalization but it is consistent with the earlier findings for the US disaster assistance program. This lends additional evidence for the argument that the most significant aspect of the CNN effect, the presumed rise of a media-driven foreign policy environment in the 1990s, may have been illusory.

Crime, politics, and minority populations: Use of official statistics in the united states and Japan

Although the governments of the United States and Japan differ markedly in racial ideology, official crime statistics in both nations reflect political arrangements which marginalize minority populations. In both nations, official crime statistics reveal more about the attempts of majority populations to label minority populations as a criminal class than about variations in criminal behavior across racial populations. While there is no racially pure Black population in the United States, there is a “black” category within official statistics, and the statistics are used to justify crime control policies which have a disparate impact on the diverse peoples who are socially‐perceived as Black. While there are undeniably non‐Japanese populations in Japan, there are no racial categories for them in official statistics which define them out of existence; except where crime statistics are concerned, so that the police can monitor the criminality of “foreigners.” In both societies, official categorization of ra...

The foundations of electoral corruption in Japan

This article describes the sources of electoral corruption in postwar Japan, in particular the relationship between demand for political funds by politicians and its supply by corporate donors. The weakness of legal and political sanctions, it is argued, allows this relationship to continue. The article concludes by examining the possibilities and limitations of recent efforts to curb electoral corruption.

Organised Religion, Civil Society and Philanthropy in Japan: Three Points of a Triangle or Three Random Points in Social Space?

Scholarship on socially-engaged religion in Japan and research on the non-profit sector in that country tend to be mutually disregarding. This article attempts to fill the gap between the scholarship on socially-engaged religion and that on the non-profit sector. It first outlines the ways in which legal categories of civil society organisations in Japan hinder the identification of religious organisations with the rest of the non-profit sector. Second, it places organised religion within Japan’s broader non-profit sector. Finally, the article examines the connections between religious and civil society organisations in other non-profit sectors. The cases suggest that organised religion is involved in some form or other in all of the major sectors of the broader non-profit sector but that their participation varies both by sector and religion.

U.S.-Japanese Relations in Transition: The Case of Fukushima.

It may appear odd to subtitle a presentation on United States-Japan relations with a locale associated with natural disaster. In fact, I was somewhat taken aback when I first saw it in print. After all, what do the 2011 Great Eastern Japan earthquake and tsunami and the subsequent nuclear power disaster at Fukushima have to do with Japan’s foreign policy? But, when I reflected upon the title I realized that it includes all of the elements of an old alliance: perennial issues, medium-term changes, and acute incidents. Newly-elected Japanese Prime Minister Noda Yasuhiko’s state visit to the United Nations and his discussions with President Obama in early September, and we might add Foreign Minister Genba’s discussions with Secretary of State Clinton just before, also demonstrate those elements. So, it is in those terms, the pe-rennial, the medium-term, and the acute, that I would like to frame today’s discus-sion about Japan’s relationship with the United States.

The Challenge of a Disaggregated Aid Program: News Media Coverage and Japanese Development Aid

We begin this chapter with an assertion of convergence and then a puzzle. While the data on press influence over aid allocations in Japan presented in this chapter are generally consistent with the findings for the other four countries, there are some intriguing differences. To put one conclusion from the data first, the complex and disaggregated nature of the Japanese aid program, encompassing as many as 18 agencies with no overarching coordinating mechanism or doctrine, complicates the analysis and makes it difficult to tie the results to the actions of a coherent bureaucratic entity. The initial results from the baseline analysis appear discouraging and it is not until steps are taken to cut through the complexity of the Japanese multiagency system that the effect of the media and other influences becomes apparent. Even with these difficulties, the analyses indicate that the media are more influential than generally supposed in the study of Japanese foreign policy. The finer-grained analysis of the data that suggest that press influence, while not as simple or straightforward as might otherwise be concluded from the other donors analyzed is still quite clear.

The Multilingual Context of a Smaller Power: News Media Coverage and Canadian Development Aid

There are several interesting and compelling reasons to include Canada in a five-country comparative analysis of national ODA programs (notwithstanding, of course, the nationality of one of the authors of this book). First, there are geopolitical considerations that set this country apart from the others examined herein. Unlike the United States, the United Kingdom, France or Japan, Canada is neither very powerful nor a past colonial or imperial power. In fact, Canada was itself a colony until 1931.1 Also, its isolated position on the North American continent and its strong ties to the United States affords Canada a strong sense of physical security. These realities signify that security and geostrategic aspects of aid are negligible concerns for Canada.