Koizumi Diplomacy

Koizumi Diplomacy PDF Author: Tomohito Shinoda
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295803738
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Japan's policymaking strategy in foreign and defense affairs changed dramatically in 2001 after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took the helm of the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Following a series of bland and short-lived prime ministers, Koizumi's infusion of fresh energy into a tired and opaque party has been compared with Tony Blair's successful revamping of New Labour in the U.K. Koizumi, however, had a weak power base in the party and limited diplomatic experience. How, then, was he able to exercise leadership? Tomohito Shinoda analyzes the prime minister's role in policymaking, focusing on the assistance he receives from the Kantei, or Cabinet Secretariat, the Japanese equivalent of the American president's White House cabinet. Since 2001, the Japanese government's center of gravity for foreign policy has shifted from the traditionally dominant Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Kantei, which allowed Koizumi to exercise a top-down style of decision-making. Through case studies and personal interviews with former prime ministers and cabinet secretaries, Shinoda looks at how Koizumi's new system operates on a practical level - how, for example, major post-2001 anti-terrorism legislation has been initiated and prepared by the Kantei-and compares its successes and failures with those of the U.S. system. With frank and engaging commentary by former officials, this book makes a unique contribution to the understanding of contemporary Japanese political affairs.

Koizumi Diplomacy

Koizumi Diplomacy PDF Author: Tomohito Shinoda
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295803738
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Get Book

Book Description
Japan's policymaking strategy in foreign and defense affairs changed dramatically in 2001 after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took the helm of the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Following a series of bland and short-lived prime ministers, Koizumi's infusion of fresh energy into a tired and opaque party has been compared with Tony Blair's successful revamping of New Labour in the U.K. Koizumi, however, had a weak power base in the party and limited diplomatic experience. How, then, was he able to exercise leadership? Tomohito Shinoda analyzes the prime minister's role in policymaking, focusing on the assistance he receives from the Kantei, or Cabinet Secretariat, the Japanese equivalent of the American president's White House cabinet. Since 2001, the Japanese government's center of gravity for foreign policy has shifted from the traditionally dominant Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Kantei, which allowed Koizumi to exercise a top-down style of decision-making. Through case studies and personal interviews with former prime ministers and cabinet secretaries, Shinoda looks at how Koizumi's new system operates on a practical level - how, for example, major post-2001 anti-terrorism legislation has been initiated and prepared by the Kantei-and compares its successes and failures with those of the U.S. system. With frank and engaging commentary by former officials, this book makes a unique contribution to the understanding of contemporary Japanese political affairs.

Japan’s Foreign Policy Making

Japan’s Foreign Policy Making PDF Author: Karol Zakowski
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319630946
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
This book evaluates the impact of the 2001 central government reforms on effective foreign policy making in Japan. It puts a special focus on the evolution of the domestic institutional factors and decision-making processes behind Japan’s foreign policy, while also analyzing the development of Japan’s external relations with various other countries, such as the US, China and North Korea. Adhering to the neoclassical realist approach, the authors show that, thanks to a more independent Kantei-based form of diplomacy, Japan’s prime ministers were able to strategically respond to international developments, and to pursue their own diplomatic endeavors more boldly. At the same time, they demonstrate that the effectiveness of this proactive posture was still heavily dependent on the decision-makers’ ability to form cohesive coalitions and select suitable institutional tools, which enabled them to influence domestic and international affairs.

Japanese Diplomacy

Japanese Diplomacy PDF Author: H. D. P. Envall
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 143845497X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Groundbreaking study demonstrating how Japan’s leaders play an important role in diplomacy. A political leader is most often a nation’s most high-profile foreign policy figure, its chief diplomat. But how do individual leadership styles, personalities, perceptions, or beliefs shape diplomacy? In Japanese Diplomacy, the question of what role leadership plays in diplomacy is applied to Japan, a country where the individual is often viewed as being at the mercy of the group and where prime ministers have been largely thought of as reactive and weak. In challenging earlier, simplified ideas of Japanese political leadership, H. D. P. Envall argues that Japan’s leaders, from early Cold War figures such as Yoshida Shigeru to the charismatic and innovative Koizumi Jun’ichir? to the present leadership of Abe Shinz?, have pursued leadership strategies of varying coherence and rationality, often independent of their political environment. He also finds that different Japanese leaders have shaped Japanese diplomacy in some important and underappreciated ways. In certain environments, individual difference has played a significant role in determining Japan’s diplomacy, both in terms of the country’s strategic identity and summit diplomacy. What emerges from Japanese Diplomacy, therefore, is a more nuanced overall picture of Japanese leadership in foreign affairs.

Koizumi and Japanese Politics

Koizumi and Japanese Politics PDF Author: Yu Uchiyama
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135149712
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
This book offers an empirical and theoretical study of the Koizumi administration, covering such issues as the characteristics of its political style, its domestic and foreign policies, and its larger historical significance. The key questions that guide its approach are: what enabled Koizumi to exercise unusually strong leadership, and what structural transformations of Japanese politics did he achieve? Uchiyama looks at policy-making processes, newly created institutional arenas such as the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, Koizumi’s populist strategy, foreign policy, and neo-liberal convictions to assess the historical significance of his administration and seek out the basis for its wide public support. Finally, the book undertakes a normative evaluation of the merits and demerits of the Koizumi administration’s political style, and compares it with the Abe and Fukuda administrations that came after. This book will be of interest to scholars and students with an interest in comparative politics, administrative reform, and contemporary Japan.

Japan’s Civil-Military Diplomacy

Japan’s Civil-Military Diplomacy PDF Author: Dennis T. Yasutomo
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134651864
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Since the early 1990s, there has been a clear evolution in the military dimension of Japanese diplomacy. From Gulf War I in 1991 to the present day, an incremental but unmistakable acceptance of, and resort to, military dispatches has taken place, and yet crucially, Japan has not morphed into a traditional military power. Exploring Japan’s involvement in both Afghanistan and Iraq, this book examines the evolution and nature of the new civil-military dimension in Japanese foreign policy. It shows how foreign aid, Japan’s traditional non-military diplomatic tool, was merged with the operations of the Japanese Self-Defense Force in Iraq and the activities of NATO-ISAF forces in Afghanistan, and emphasises the centrality of civilian power to Japanese foreign policy and diplomacy. However, Dennis Yasutomo argues that while a new civil-military security culture is replacing the old merchant state culture of pacifism and anti-militarism, Japan does not yet qualify as a military "normal nation". Further, the book’s exploration of the increased utilization of military power within the context of civilian objectives and non-military diplomatic instruments, sheds light on the current build-up of Japanese military power in East and Southeast Asia amid territorial disputes and nuclear threats, and highlights the impact that Japan’s new civil-military diplomacy may have on wider international affairs in the 21st Century. Drawing on interviews with key actors in Tokyo, as well as with practitioners who have served on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, this book will have broad appeal to students and scholars working on Japanese politics and diplomacy, military and security studies and international relations.

Political Survival and Yasukuni in Japan's Relations with China

Political Survival and Yasukuni in Japan's Relations with China PDF Author: Mong Cheung
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317369491
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 165

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Book Description
What role does the political survival of prime ministers play in Japan’s relations with China over the Yasukuni issue? Three Japanese prime ministers, including Nakasone Yasuhiro, Hashimoto Ryutaro and Abe Shinzo, complied with China’s demands and stopped visiting the controversial Shrine in 1986, 1997 and 2007, respectively. By contrast, the Yasukuni controversy intensified between 2001 and 2006 when a popular Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro was determined to pay regular homage to the Yasukuni Shrine annually. Prime Minister Abe, who previously demonstrated restraint over the issue in his first term between 2006 and 2007, visited the Yasukuni unexpectedly in 2013 but not in 2014 or 2015. To explain this variation, this book presents an alternative interpretation of Japan’s official responses toward China’s pressure over the Yasukuni issue between 1985 and 2015 by applying a political survival approach that highlights the domestic political legitimacy of the Japanese prime minister or the ruling party. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers of Sino-Japanese relations, Japan’s foreign policy and international relations.

Contemporary Japanese Politics

Contemporary Japanese Politics PDF Author: Tomohito Shinoda
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023152806X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
Decentralized policymaking power in Japan had developed under the reign of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), yet in the1990s, institutional changes fundamentally altered Japan's political landscape. Tomohito Shinoda tracks these developments in the operation of and tensions between Japan's political parties and the public's behavior in elections, as well as in the government's ability to coordinate diverse policy preferences and respond to political crises. The selection of Junichiro Koizumi, an anti-mainstream politician, as prime minister in 2001 initiated a power shift to the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and ended LDP rule. Shinoda details these events and Prime Minister Koizumi's use of them to practice strong policymaking leadership. He also outlines the institutional initiatives introduced by the DPJ government and their impact on policymaking, illustrating the importance of balanced centralized institutions and bureaucratic support.

Sino-Japanese Relations in a Trilateral Context

Sino-Japanese Relations in a Trilateral Context PDF Author: Yun Zhang
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137503351
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
This book explains the increasingly turbulent Sino–Japanese relations since the 2000s by innovatively investigating the formation mechanism of mutual misperception deeply rooted in China-Japan-U.S. trilateral structural dynamics. The political and security relationship has been increasingly deteriorating against the high interdependency between the world’s second and third largest economies. More ironically, both sides have also shown the intent and made efforts to improve bilateral ties. The author systematically conducts a focused comparison of the evolution of the Sino-Japanese mutual perceptions and policies toward one another during the past decade and a half. Empirically, Yun Zhang closely examines five case studies that provide insights to IR students and scholars and policy makers on how misperception and mistrust have formed, replicated, and intensified.

The Diplomatic History of Postwar Japan

The Diplomatic History of Postwar Japan PDF Author: Makoto Iokibe
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135267359
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Winner of the prestigious Yoshida Shigeru Prize 1999 for the best book in public history when it was published in its original Japanese, this book presents a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of Japan’s international relations from the end of the Pacific War to the present. Written by leading Japanese authorities on the subject, it makes extensive use of the most recently declassified Japanese documents, memoirs, and diaries. It introduces the personalities and approaches Japan’s postwar leaders and statesmen took in dealing with a rapidly changing world and the challenges they faced. Importantly, the book also discusses the evolution of Japan’s presence on the international stage and the important – if underappreciated role – Japan has played. The book examines the many issues which Japan has had to confront in this important period: from the occupation authorities in the latter half 1940s, to the crisis-filled 1970s; from the post-Cold War decade to the contemporary war on terrorism. The book examines the effect of the changing international climate and domestic scene on Japan’s foreign policy; and the way its foreign policy has been conducted. It discusses how the aims of Japan’s foreign relations, and how its relationships with its neighbours, allies and other major world powers have developed, and assesses how far Japan has succeeded in realising its aims. It concludes by discussing the current state of Japanese foreign policy and likely future developments.

Japan's Peace-Building Diplomacy in Asia

Japan's Peace-Building Diplomacy in Asia PDF Author: Peng Er Lam
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134125054
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
The conventional portrayal of Japan’s role in international affairs is of a passive political player which – despite its position as the world’s second largest economic power – punches below its weight on the world stage: its foreign policy driven by Washington, mercantilism and constrained by domestic pacifism. This book examines Japan’s emerging identity as an important participant in conflict prevention and peace-building in Southeast and South Asia, demonstrating that Japan has increasingly sought a positive and active political role commensurate with its economic pre-eminence. The book considers Japanese involvement in many of the region’s most serious recent conflicts: including Japan’s part in the brokering and maintaining of peace in Cambodia, which in 1992 saw the first dispatch of troops abroad by Tokyo since the end of World War II, and the attempts to bring peace to Aceh, Sri Lanka, East Timor and Mindanao. The Japanese example, when compared with other countries prominent in the fields of conflict prevention, suggests that Tokyo – given its pacifist strategic culture – relies on diplomacy and Official Development Assistance rather than peace enforcement through military means. Overall, this book provides a lucid appraisal of Japan’s overall foreign policy, as well as its new role in conflict prevention and peace-building - analysing the reasons behind this shift towards an active international role and assessing the degree of success it has enjoyed.