EU認識研究に関する一考察

日本のエリート調査を事例として

抄録

This paper focuses on EU perception studies and tries to clarify how non-Europeans perceive the EU. EU perception studies can contribute to the research agenda on EU identities from the outside European perspective. The author participated in the research project of “The EU through the Eyes of Asia”, which is the first research project of European Studies in Asia, studied the perceptions of the EU among Asian countries such as China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand using media analysis, public opinion survey and elite interview research. Also, the author researched the perceptions of the EU in Japan. This paper is based on the fruit of this project.
The paper has two parts. The first part outlines the origin and the development of EU perception studies. NCRE (National Centre for Research on Europe, University of Canterbury, New Zealand) began the perception project in 2003 with the objective of clarifying how the EU is perceived in Asia-Pacific. NCRE has been the core research centre of EU perception studies since then. NCRE presented a multinational research framework on EU perceptions in Asia-Pacific from three perspectives; media, public opinion and elites. This paper focuses on the elite aspect component of EU perception studies and criticises the previous literature. The second part shows the elite perception of the EU in Japan as one case. First, the methodology of the elite interview research is introduced. Second, the result of Japanese elite interview research, which surveyed 38 Japanese elites between May and October in 2007, is presented. Here, it is clear that the majority of Japanese elite interviewees consider the EU as a great power, especially economically and diplomatically. This trend can be found in the results of China, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea.