Japan’s National Security Policy and Gender

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to introduce a gender perspective to the study of Japan’s national security policymaking. Politicians appear to think that they are able to make foreign policy, national security policy in particular, without paying much attention to special interests or their constituents. As a result, national security is an issue area where policymakers’ personal values such as subjectivity and/or worldviews, which arise from their experience, educational background and socialization, have a deep impact on the policymaking process. In most states, including Japan, the arena for national policymaking has been dominated by men and thus what is reflected in the process is mostly men’s experiences, subjectivity, and values. As these experiences and values cannot be understood without policymakers’ shared views on the meaning of what it is to be a man or what it means to be manly, namely gender, I will first focus on the nature of masculinity in Japanese society. Then, based upon my observation that the ideal of kigyo senshi (corporate warrior) has always been dominant in postwar Japan, as opposed to a weaker ideal of mai homu papa (my home papa), I will attempt to unravel the link between the dominant masculinity and the tightening of the U.S.-Japan alliance through the expansion of the role of the SDF since the 1990s.