Richard J. Samuels

Mercantile Realism and Japanese Foreign Policy

International relations scholars have largely overlooked Japan in their surveys of great power politics. At the same time, students of Japan frequently focus on a single policy area or on Japan’s bilateral relations with specific states and have generally failed to test Japan’s larger strategic calculus against international relations theory.’ Those who have examined Japanese grand strategy typically adopt a structural realist model, under which states are motivated primarily by the fundamental imperative of military security and frequently subordinate other goals to that end. Some scholars, observing divergence from behavior predicted by this theory, have concluded that Japan’s foreign policy is nonrealist or otherwise exceptional.2 In this article, we examine Japan’s postwar foreign policy both against structural realism and against what we call ”mercantile realism,” which recognizes technoeconomic security interests-including, but not limited to, those associated with military security-as central considerations of state policy. We conclude that although Japan clearly does not ignore military security,

“New Fighting Power!” Japan's Growing Maritime Capabilities and East Asian Security

Japanese leaders struggled for decades to overcome legal, political, and normative constraints on the expansion of the Self-Defense Forces so that Japan could field a robust military. Their progress was steady and significant, but slow. Now, having reframed the nature of the threat Japan faces and having borrowed creatively from the U.S. model, they have found new traction by empowering the Japan Coast Guard (JCG). Todays JCG has what its publicists, citing capabilities explicitly banned by Japans constitution, call New Fighting Power! Remarkably, however, JCG modernization and expansion are being achieved without much objection from Japans neighbors or from the domestic public. Although the JCG is not a second navy, it is already a fourth branch of the Japanese military. Tokyo is now able to project additional diplomatic influence as well as fighting power. Japans new fighting power is thus greater than the sum of its military parts.

Japan's goldilocks strategy

Which Japanese leader will emerge to help build a consensus among the countrys strategic choices: constructing a national identity as a great or middle power, defining its role in regional or global terms, and maintaining relations neither too close to nor too far from both Beijing and Washington?

Japan’s Rhetoric of Crisis: Prospects for Change after 3.11

For some Japanese political entrepreneurs, the March 2011 catastrophe in Tohoku (3.11) was a warning for Japan to “put it in gear” and head in a new direction—away from nuclear power or toward a muscular military. For others, 3.11 was a once-in-a-millennium “black swan,” so Japan should “stay the course.” Still others say Japan must rebuild what was lost to modernity and globalization. The battle among these perspectives on change and the use of three other tropes—leadership, community, and risk—have defined post-3.11 politics and public policy in Japan.

Kidnapping Politics in East Asia

In this article, I examine two contemporary cases in which the same foreign adversary, North Korea (DPRK), violated the sovereignty of neighboring states. I use a comparison of South Korean and Japanese reactions to political captivity to assess institutional performance in democratic states and ways in which these dynamics are connected to international politics. We see how “captivity narratives” can be differentially constructed and deployed and how policy capture can be achieved by determined political actors. Civic groups in both countries worked to mobilize political support, frame the issue for the media, and force policy change. In Japan, politicians were more willing to use the abduction issue for domestic political gain than in Korea, where the political class was determined to prevent human rights issues (including abductions) from interfering with their larger political agenda, including improved relations with the DPRK.

Consuming for production: Japanese national security, nuclear fuel procurement, and the domestic economy

One of the most intriguing aspects of postwar Japan is a reversal of economic roles in which consumers serve producers rather than vice versa. By acquiescing to “consumer unfriendly” price and distribution systems, Japanese consumers have subsidized Japanese industry and Western consumers as well. Although much of the recent theorizing about Japanese production and consumption has focused on Japanese consumers as end users, it has seldom addressed the question of how Japanese producers that pay more than others for factor inputs remain competitive in world markets. This article uses the case of nuclear fuel price insensitivity, derived from security concerns, to explore how this behavior is institutionalized through regulatory policy in the larger Japanese economic culture.

The Industrial Destructuring of the Japanese Aluminum Industry

THE JAPANESE ALUMINUM INDUSTRY is in serious trouble. Its accelerating deterioration, and the resulting reordering of the industry throughout the Pacific basin, have been underway for nearly a decade. Curiously, this has received scant attention in Western media awash with accounts of the Japanese economic miracle. Unctuous eastward bows toward Japanese production methods, social organization, and industrial policy too often block the commonsensical recognition that the Japanese-like any others-can pick losers, suffer from significant failures of coordination, and fall prey to forces beyond their control. Indeed, the vaunted reputation of Japans Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) is built in part upon its ability to direct impartially the elimination of failing industries. The case of the aluminum industry has proved an excellent test of both MITIs wisdom and power. In this brief article, I shall discuss the source of the crisis in the Japanese aluminum industry, identify the actors and institutions mobilized to cope with that crisis, and outline both the strategic and tactical responses that have been fashioned through the politics of the publicpolicy process. It is not difficult to understand why Japanese aluminum smelters are in such serious financial straits. In spite of the fact that they are the worlds most efficient producers of ingots (as measured in kilowatt hours per ton produced), their electric power costs are, by far, the highest in the world. Bayer-Hall smelting technology, the worlds commercial standard, makes the primary production of aluminum among the most electricity-intensive industrial processes. Japanese process innovation and production efficiencies are more than offset by Japans most oft-

Prosperity's Children: Generational Change and Japan's Future Leadership

This study measures generational differences in the views of Japanese legislators across three key areas of Japans political discourse—economic policy, security policy, and cultural issues related to right-wing nationalism. The study then explores the policy implications of these differences through three plausible midterm scenarios.

Tracking democracies: Italy and Japan in historical perspective

Abstract The Italian and Japanese roads toward democracy have been paved by external forces, by the timing of economic development, by ‘great’ leaders and by such factors as institutions, class structure, geography and even by accident. In finding a pair of countries where so much is similar, and yet where fundamental differences penist, comparativists have fertile ground in which to look for key factors in political (and democratic) change. This article, in short, takes aim at illuminating these factors by distinguishing between the structural and cultural conditions within which democratic tracks were laid in Japanese and Italian history. It concludes that a closer examination of leadership and agency is necessary to explain more fully democratic development in Italy and Japan.

Japan's Emerging Grand Strategy

J apan’s national security strategy is once again the object of considerable debate, the fourth such moment in a century-and-a-half of alternating debates and consensuses. A widespread belief in the efficacy of “catching up and surpassing” the West helped elites in the late nineteenth century forge the Meiji consensus on borrowing foreign institutions, learning Western rules, and mastering Western practice. This “Rich Nation, Strong Army” model was a great success, but the consensus became tattered by the end of World War I, when it was clear that the West viewed Japanese ambitions with suspicion. After a period of domestic violence and intimidation, a new consensus was forged on a less conciliatory response to world affairs. Prince Konoye Fumimaro’s 1937 “New Asian Order” attracted support from across a wide swath of Japan’s ideological spectrum. The new Japan would be a great power, Asia’s leader. The disaster that resulted is well known, and from its ashes— again, after considerable debate, creative reinvention, and consolidation of power—Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru conjured a pragmatic path to provide security cheaply as the Cold War began. This security would not, however, be free. The Yoshida Doctrine, which called for Japan to adopt the U.S. stance on international politics in exchange for military protection and mercantile gain, would cost Japan its autonomy. Increasingly, this cost is seen by many as more than Japan should pay. Thus the strategy that has joined Japan and the United States at the hip is being questioned—both by those who support the alliance and by those who oppose it. The fourth consensus has yet to reveal itself, though its contending political and intellectual constituents are clearly identifiable. Ken Pyle is likely correct when he argues that “Japan’s future foreign policy will differ from the grand strategy that [Yoshida] pioneered. Its Cold War role as a merchant