国際政治学の生物学的基礎 -神川彦松の忘れられた一面-

国際政治研究の先端4

抄録

Hikomatsu KAMIKAWA, well known as one of the pioneers of the study of international poltics in Japan, is said to have been an “idealist” in the interwar period, though turned to become a “realist” afterwards. However, this presumed conversion, comparable to the contested common image of the Western experience, not only turns out to be flawed because of the duality of KAMIKAWA's comprehensive studies containing both “idealistic” and “realistic” sides simultaneously, it also conceals the logic linking both sides. KAMIKAWA presumed a single-tracked line of evolution subject to biological laws integrating his “realistic” description of the past and the present, and his “idealistic” expectation of the future. He considered the growth of population to be the fundamental driving force of the evolution, and therefore ranked biology among the sciences relevant to the study of international politics. This paper is intended to offer an overview of KAMIKAWA's reliance on biological analogies prevalent throughout his writings on international politics.
By presumptively drawing an analogy between nations and living organisms, KAMIKAWA turned the arena of international politics into a sphere under the influence of biological laws. The “reality” of international politics was compared to the process of “the struggle for existence” unfolding in the relationship among nations, whose description matches the standard image of “realism.” On the other hand, he speculated on visions to confine the forms of the struggle to peaceful means, or to reinforce cooperation based on “solidarity”, the relationship supposed to develop in parallel with “the struggle for existence.” These so-called “idealistic” ideas were based on the writings of such critics of the doctrine of “the struggle for existence” as Peter Kropotkin or Jacques Novicow.
KAMIKAWA's indulgence in the idea to analogize international politics to “the struggle for existence” among nations rendered his theories susceptible to German geopolitics which flourished in Japan from the latter half of the 1930s to the early 1940s. KAMIKAWA wrote prolifically with resort to the vocabulary of geopolitics during that period, and his commitment to this combatant prescription for diplomacy, which amounted to the negation of his own “idealist” vision of international politics in substance, apparently gives support to the pervasive conversion hypothesis aforementioned. However, not only does the hypothesis miss the plain fact that KAMIKAWA simultaneously speculated in both directions, “idealism” and “realism, ” the application of such extensive labels covering thinkers from ancient Greece to the contemporary even obscures the characteristic feature of KAMIKAWA's speculations based on biological analogies. This essay is intended as a reminder of such traits of KAMIKAWA left unrevealed by previous studies.