War is peace: the rearticulation of ‘peace’ in Japan’s China discourse

Abstract

Abstract. This article demonstrates that a national identity defined by a normative commitment to peace is not necessarily an antidote to remilitarisation and war. More specifically, the article takes issue with the debate about the trajectory of Japan's security and defence policy. One strand of the debate holds that Japan is normatively committed to peace while the other claims that Japan is in the process of remilitarising. This article argues that the two positions are not mutually exclusive -a point that has been overlooked in the literature. The article uses discourse analysis to trace how 'peace' was discussed in debates about China in the Japanese Diet in 1972 and 2009-12. It demonstrates how rearticulations by right wing discourses in the latter period have depicted peace as something that must be defended actively, and thus as compatible with remilitarisation or military normalisation. Japan's changing peace identity could undermine rather than stabilise peaceful relations with its East Asian neighbours.

Revisiting ‘identity’ in International Relations: From identity as substance to identifications in action

“…More importantly, by primarily situating identity construction at the domestic level and by subsequently asking how identities shape foreign policy, post-structuralists treat identity as a cause of action. This ultimately boils down to the assumption that ‘[w]hat a state is … is thought to translate into how it behaves’ (Hagström and Hanssen, 2015: 4). However, focusing on domestic identity discourses that ‘generate’ foreign policy resembles essentialist approaches in which identity (often through the internalization of norms) causes actions.…”

WIN-WIN! with ODA-man: legitimizing development assistance policy in Japan

“…While norm constructivism (Berger, 1998;Finnemore & Sikkink, 1998;Legro, 1997) emphasizes the internalization (or lack thereof) of norms among political actors, the repertoire approach rather suggests that it is in the very activation of instruments in networks that agency takes place. Moreover, critical constructivist approaches (Gustafsson, 2015(Gustafsson, , 2019Hagstr€ om and Hanssen, 2016;Hanssen, 2020;Suzuki, 2015;Yennie Lindgren & Lindgren, 2017) are predominantly concerned with differentiation processes, how actors construct identity -Selfin constant negotiation vis-a-vis its Others, which is helpful for understanding how policies, practices and instruments become 'conceivable' in a political community (see Doty, 1993;Holland, 2011;Rumelili, 2004). When it comes to repertoires, however, the concern is to situate the activation and promotion of this particular instrument -ODA-manas part of the broader family of instruments, and to illuminate the continuity of Japan's foreign policy repertoire in the face of a rising China and deteriorating public finances at home.…”

“…Here, I distinguish between public legitimization as 'contests' and as 'promotion'. While public contests concern political actors' struggle to shape the boundaries for reasonable, natural and smart foreign policy in contests with other political actors (for empirical studies on Japan see Hagstr€ om & Gustafsson, 2015;Hagstr€ om and Hanssen, 2016;Gustafsson, 2015;Lindgren, 2016Lindgren, , 2019, public promotion is the marketing performances, practices, and instruments that government institutions employ in a 'one-way monologue' towards a domestic or international audience. In the literature on Japan, scholars have primarily investigated the public promotion of Cool Japan or Cute Culture (Bukh, 2014;Iwabuchi, 2015;Leheny, 2018;Nakamura, 2013;Otmazgin, 2012;White, 2017).…”

Long live pacifism! Narrative power and Japan’s pacifist model

“…Again, the Japanese case may be informative. Japan's pacifist identity in most of the post-war period was mainly constructed in relation not to other unpeaceful states, but to Japan's own unpeaceful past (Hagstr€ om and Hanssen 2016;Gustafsson 2019).…”