Explanation of Japan's international relations: structure, agency and norms

1. 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?

2. Unit 3. Explanation of Japan's
international relations:
structure, agency and norms
Prof. Glenn Hook

3. 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’

4. 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.

5. 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)

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

7. Explaining Japan’s international
relations: structure, agency and norms
• International structures: states,
institutions and regional frameworks
• Bipolarity and multi-polarity
• Constraints and opportunities

8. International
Structure
Agency: Key
actors and
policy makers
Domestic and
international
norms
Anti-militarism Bilateralism

9. 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

10. The influence of catch-all
party politics and business
• Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)
• Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)
• Business community

11. Japan’s National Diet and Bank of Japan

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

13. Domestic Society
• Mass Media
• Think Tanks
• Academic Community
• Sub-state political authorities
• Pressure groups, non-governmental
organizations, social movements and public
opinion

14. Japan’s multiple
domestic agents

15. Norms
• Internationally embedded norms:
Bilateralism, Asianism, Trilateralism,
Internationalism
• Domestically embedded norms: Anti-
militarism, Developmentalism, Economism

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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