International Relations
Online ISSN : 1883-9916
Print ISSN : 0454-2215
ISSN-L : 0454-2215
Volume 2012, Issue 168
Displaying 1-15 of 15 articles from this issue
The Frontier of International Relations 9
  • Fumio Kumamoto
    2012 Volume 2012 Issue 168 Pages 168_1-15
    Published: February 29, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2014
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper focuses on the organizational reform within the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) in the interwar period and examines the impact that the newly established bureau, the Asian Affairs Bureau, had on the overall character of the MOFA's leadership and its diplomacy toward China in the period.
    In late 1910s, the MOFA developed an idea to establish two new bureaus for its organization improvement: the General Affairs Bureau and the Far East Affairs Bureau. The purpose for establishing the former bureau was to clarify the division of roles between holding talks with the diet and conducting ordinary affairs within the ministry. The aim for establishing the latter bureau was to develop a more effective investment policy toward China.
    The MOFA, however, could not achieve the desired goals. Instead, in October 1920, it established two new regional bureaus: the Asian Affairs Bureau and the European and American Affairs Bureau. Nonetheless, both bureaus lacked a function to coordinate its policy making with the MOFA's overall diplomatic policies.
    In this context, the MOFA set up the Counselor Conference in August 1920 with the intention to take charge of the overall coordination and administration with each bureau. For that purpose, the MOFA adopted the Counselor Conference System in which the counselors were placed in “line positions” in each bureau which directly involved in policy making instead of being placed in “staff positions” which provided services and assistance to persons in line positions.
    The system, however, did not function effectively. In response, the MOFA devised yet another system called the Regional Bureau Initiative System in 1925. The system, contrary to the previous one, was to give each regional bureau exclusive authority to control over affairs within its jurisdiction. Consequently, in the case of the Asian Affairs Bureau, control over the Chinese and Manchurian Railway policy was transferred to the First Asia Division from the Second Asia Division, which meant that policy making of the Asian Affairs Bureau would be virtually unaffected from the MOFA's overall diplomatic policies.
    Under the new system, the MOFA succeeded in giving the Asian Affairs Bureau greater independence to efficiently develop diplomatic strategy for China. The system, however, was also costly since the MOFA lost the coordinating functions for its overall diplomatic policies. It can be said that the establishment of the Asian Affairs Bureau under the new system changed the character of the MOFA's leadership, and the Asian Affairs Bureau itself became vulnerable to intervention by the men in uniform.
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  • Tomohito Baji
    2012 Volume 2012 Issue 168 Pages 168_16-29
    Published: February 29, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2014
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Alfred E. Zimmern (1879–1957), scholar on Hellenism, the first Woodrow Wilson professor of International Politics at Aberystwyth and exponent of international intellectual cooperation, played a pioneering role in the development of International Relations (IR) discipline in early twentieth-century Britain. Nevertheless, he has long been forgotten in the historiography of IR since E.H. Carr's denunciation that branded him as one of the inter-war “idealists/utopians”, who transplanted the outmoded nineteenth-century Benthamite rationalism into the international realm. Yet, a number of recent revisionist studies on early IR thought have revealed much more complicated and nuanced aspects of inter-war internationalists including Zimmern. The present article aims at adding to these revisionist historiographical literature by providing a novel reinterpretation of Zimmern's international political thought.
    This article argues that Zimmern's intellectual trajectory can be reinterprete as pursuing the shaping of an international welfare society, a society which, with both cooperative spirit and organic character saturated, could govern global economic interdependence and competition to redistribute some wealth across the nation-states; therefore, it continues to contend that he can be enumerated as one of the thinkers espousing “social democracy beyond the national boundaries”.
    This argument is advanced in the following sequence. First, the article adopts a method of dissecting the manner in which welfarist categories and sensibilities derived from British idealist philosophy were reflected in Zimmern's imperial-cum-international thinking. Second, it analyses a pivotal cognitive shift that occurred in Zimmern's mind during the First World War: that is, he came to realise that origins of the War consisted in the ethic underpinning the nineteenth-century liberal capitalism. On the basis of this realisation, the article demonstrates, Zimmern formulated the principle of Commonwealth and applied this principle to the post-War international order, aspiring to publicly govern global economic network with an ideal of “the welfare of the world as a whole”. Third, the article explores the ways in which Zimmern, as a self-pronounced social democrat, strove to fashion an international welfare society throughout the twenty-years interlude in “crisis”. Whilst Zimmern manifestly veered away from the League of Nations system onto the configuration of a trans-Atlantic community specifically from the mid 1930s, he, the article insists, adhered to the execution of international welfare policies revolving around the principle of Commonwealth. Finally, after articulating an implication of the new understanding of Zimmern for further scholarship on IR historiography, future research work to buttress the aforementioned argument is indicated.
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  • Yasuhiro Nishiwaki
    2012 Volume 2012 Issue 168 Pages 168_30-43
    Published: February 29, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2014
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The aim of this article is to clarify the process and factor of Portugal's application to the EEC in 1977. In the existing studies, one emphasizes a relevancy with the democratization process which occurred in the 1970s. Others give importance to the decolonization process which also evolved in the 1970s. Checked against the historical fact, however, these studies are not valid as independent explication. In fact, intertwine between democratization and decolonization in various phases led to the application. The present article verifies this point, principally based on records of historical archives in Portugal.
    In the 1950s, when the European integration, namely the ECSC, the EURATOM and the EEC launched among the West European countries, the Portuguese government under Salazar and Caetano's authoritarian regime did not seek to join these projects because of the incompatibility with the colonial empire. Since the 1970s, however, on account of a deadlock of the colonial war in Africa and the evolution of economic relations with the EEC countries, the oppositions such as the Socialist Party criticized the government's position, insisting on abandoning the African colonies and simultaneously accessing the EEC through democratization of the regime. These oppositions cooperated with the armed forces that also had a discontent against the colonial war. Hence the authoritarian regime collapsed with a military coup in April 1974.
    At that point, however, what was held in common among pricipal actors was only about the colonial matter and not about the European matter. Under the provisional regime, the reformist fraction of the armed forces, which had intention to introduce a “revolutionary” regime and were not favorable for the participation in the EEC, seized power in the government with a support of the Portuguese Communist Party. But centrist parties such as the Socialist Party denounced such reformist's stance. Political organizations in the EEC contries also applied democratic pressures on the armed forces. The governments of the EEC member states expressed that they could cooperate with only democratic countries as a new member.
    In the face of such pressures, the moderator fraction of the Portuguese army, which had kept silent, went into action. They recognized that the relations with the EEC would be indispensable for Portugal, given the independence of the African ex-colonies which started in September 1974. They shut the reformists out from the government. As a result of a “coalition” between dominant forces of the armed forces and political parties in terms of external (European integration) and internal (political regime) policies, the democratization process was set out, and in March 1977, one year after the transition to a democratic state, the Portuguese government applied the accession to the EEC (as well as the ECSC and the EURATOM).
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  • Takeshi Sugawara
    2012 Volume 2012 Issue 168 Pages 168_44-57
    Published: February 29, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2014
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    After the Great War broke out, Japan's naval and military assistance was an important concern for the British government. Arthur Balfour was the only politician involved in this matter from the beginning to the end of the war. Until he became Foreign Secretary he had little expectation of Japan's assistance. However, the difficult circumstances of the war forced him to review his opinion about the value of Japan's help, as Britain was suffering badly from a shortage of manpower and munitions. As Foreign Secretary he had high hopes of Japan's assistance and did not hesitate to launch negotiations to secure her aid.
    Balfour sought Japan's naval assistance and eventually succeeded in inducing her to despatch her destroyers to the Mediterranean. The price for this, namely guaranteeing Japanese rights in Shantung and the Pacific islands, was regarded as a permissible concession. The Japanese government, however, expressed disapproval at his request that they sell battle-cruisers to Britain. Balfour promptly put forward a new proposal to borrow the battlecruisers instead, based on his assumption that lending them would be more agreeable to Japan than selling them. He could not conceal his disappointment and dissatisfaction with the Japanese government's refusal to fulfil this modified request. He was not convinced by the reasons the Japanese government presented and criticised Japan's reluctance to help Britain.
    In seeking Japan's military assistance, Balfour faced two obstacles. One was the difficulty of transporting Japanese troops to the European field. Many troopships would be needed to carry a large number of Japanese soldiers to the western or Salonica front. Britain and the Allied Powers, however, could not afford to allocate so many ships as they had a severe deficit of tonnage. The other obstacle was the need to harmonise the Japanese military campaign with the political interests of Britain and the Allied Powers. Russia did not want to receive Japanese soldiers on the eastern front due to her fear of massive territorial concessions to Japan. Although Balfour considered that Mesopotamia was the most promising theatre from which to deploy Japanese troops, he was obliged to renounce this idea due to strong opposition from the India Office and the Government of India. He continued to seek a location where transportation difficulties could be overcome and which was compatible with the interests of the other powers, and saw Siberia as the most favourable field. Henceforth Japan's military assistance was regarded as the Siberian Intervention, and Balfour continued to tackle this subject.
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  • Hiroshi Komatsu
    2012 Volume 2012 Issue 168 Pages 168_58-73
    Published: February 29, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2014
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Previous studies of Okinawa's restoration to Japan have explored Japan-U.S. relations while paying little attention to relations between Japan and Okinawa. However, this approach assumes that Okinawa was simply an object in the negotiating process for its reversion to Japan, and not a subjective actor. Accordingly, this paper is concerned with negotiations between Japan and Okinawa in order to clarify the part played by the latter. I shall focus on visits to Tokyo made by Chobyo Yara, Executive Chief of the Ryukyu Government, to meet with Japanese Government officials including Prime Minister Eisaku Sato and Foreign Minister Kiichi Aichi. In particular, this paper deals with “homeland level status”, a term used in their discussions to define the conditions for Okinawa's reversion.
    Japanese officials made frequent mention of their expectation that U.S. military bases would be reduced and consolidated after Okinawa's reversion, just as they had seen the removal of military bases after Japan's independence in 1952. This reveals an evident analogy between the restoration of Japanese sovereignty and the restoration of Okinawan administrative rights. However, the reality that several U.S. military bases were moved from Japan to Okinawa, which came under U.S. direct control, was ignored: a fact which reveals a significant flaw in the Japanese Government's logic.
    Throughout their negotiations, the Ryukyu Government made persistent claims for “immediate, unconditional and total” reversion, to which the Japanese Government repeatedly answered that reversion would bring Okinawa to “homeland level status”. These negotiations offered no room for manoeuvre to the Ryukyu Government, who was powerless in decisions regarding the restoration of administrative rights to Okinawa. Yara therefore sought to justify Okinawan peoples' demand for “immediate, unconditional and total” reversion using three key arguments: that politically, as Executive Chief, Yara represented the consensus of Okinawan opinion; that nationally, Okinawa should be reunited with Japan; and, that Okinawa's aspiration for peace would be secured by the “democratic and peaceful” Japanese Constitution.
    On the Okinawan side, the reversion movement is said to have developed from resistance to military occupation and its aim was the complete removal of military bases. However, Okinawa had already been positioned as a keystone of the U.S. military within the U.S.-Japan security treaty structure even before its reversion. In this sense, it is logically doubtful that Okinawa's reversion to Japan could have led to the clearance of military bases. Hence, such expectations held by Yara and pro-reversion supporters may be considered contradictory.
    To understand the “Okinawan Problem” as it exists today, it is necessary to consider the history of both Japan-U.S. and Japan-Okinawa relations. To that end, it is critical to problematise Japan and Okinawa's historical relationship.
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  • Yoko Kawamura
    2012 Volume 2012 Issue 168 Pages 168_74-87
    Published: February 29, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2014
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In Germany it is often said that cultural policy is the third pillar of foreign policy. That means culture, together with security and trade, constitutes an essential part of international relations. This concept was formulated during the Cold War period, mainly by Dieter Sattler, director of the Cultural Department of the Foreign Office (1959–66), and Willy Brandt, foreign minister of the Kiesinger administration (1966–69).
    When the Federal Republic was founded, its government was reluctant of pursuing international cultural policy on its own. It was in the latter half of the 1950s that foreign policymakers, in the face of cultural offensive by the Eastern Bloc, thought they need a systematic cultural policy. Some cultural attachés, such as Sattler in Rome and Bruno E. Werner in Washington D.C., insisted that cultural policy must indeed be placed at the core of West German diplomacy.
    Sattler regarded cultural policy as a tool of managing transnational relations in the contemporary world of interdependence. As a head of the Cultural Department in Bonn, he insisted that culture is the “third stage” of foreign policy, and strived to establish the organizational, financial, and conceptual bases of foreign cultural policy.
    The thesis “culture is the third pillar of foreign policy” was formulated by Brandt, who headed the Foreign Office under the grand coalition. When the Cold War was locked in a stalemate, he thought that cultural policy was a suitable means to maintain the unity of German nation without legally admitting the existence of two German states. Though his plan of “all-German foreign cultural policy” was not realized, Brandt repeatedly stated in public that culture is one of the main pillars of foreign policy. The popular foreign minister regarded cultural policy as essential for making Germany a peacepursuing nation.
    Sattler's “third-stage” argument and Brandt's “third-pillar” argument both see culture as an important field of international relations. The two theses differ, however, in time scope and worldview. While the “third-stage” argument is based on rather liberal vision focusing on interdependence and long-time, structural transformation of the nation-state system, the “thirdpillar” argument is more realistic, stressing the integrity and prosperity of the nation.
    While the “third-pillar” argument became a cliché, German foreign policymakers could neither establish a firm principle nor execute consistent policy in the field of culture. Rather, foreign cultural policy got increasingly negative attention from politicians and the media, who thought that tax was not used in a proper form. The “third-pillar” argument could actually have created complications, since it did not clarify the content of “culture” while placing cultural policy as a priority.
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  • Ritsuko Saotome
    2012 Volume 2012 Issue 168 Pages 168_88-101
    Published: February 29, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2014
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This article examines Sweden's “non-alignment” as a core of its security policy. This analysis especially focuses on changes of the Swedish security doctrine and Sweden's relations to the United Nations, NATO and European regional organizations after the Cold War.
    In 1992, Sweden changed its security doctrine from broadly defined “neutrality” to narrow “military non-alignment” in order to adjust itself to changes in Europe after the end of the Cold War. Then, in the middle of the 1990s, Sweden joined the European Union (EU) and established close relations with NATO and Western European Union (WEU).
    Though Sweden has not been a member of any military alliance, it has actively participated in peacekeeping operations under the UN mandates since the 1940s. Sweden has played a very large role in peacekeeping missions with close cooperation with other Nordic countries. This can be seen as Sweden's strategy not only to contribute creation of “a better world” but also to enhance its own national security using an advantage of “non-aligned” status in international relations.
    Even after the Cold War, participation in peacekeeping operations and crisis management has been a self-evident Swedish contribution to international peace and security. As long as there was some form of UN resolution or consent, Sweden has allocated its troops to the NATO-led peacekeeping operations and crisis management. Sweden's close cooperation with NATO and European states has also aimed to enhance Swedish national security avoiding isolation in the post-Cold War world.
    As the promotion of EU crisis management fitted well into the Swedish security doctrine, Sweden, together with military non-aligned Finland, proposed to introduce the Petersberg tasks into the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) in 1996. Sweden and other Nordic countries have insisted that effective crisis management has to be comprehensive and include both civilian and military means, and this approach is now the hallmark of EU crisis management.
    Since the middle of the 1990s, Sweden has been moving away from a military-oriented concept of “total defense” to a more civilian-oriented approach for international crisis management. At the same time, Sweden has started more open and intense military cooperation with other countries, but it still explicitly excludes mutual defense arrangements and participation in any defense alliance.
    Though Sweden's policy of “non-alignment” has been narrowed down to military dimension, it remains as a fundamental element in Swedish security policy. Being a military non-aligned state, Sweden still wants to preserve ability to make decisions based on its own analyses and seeks to maintain national freedom of action in external relations. In this sense, “non-alignment” continues to be a core of Swedish security policy.
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  • Hirofumi Takase
    2012 Volume 2012 Issue 168 Pages 168_102-116
    Published: February 29, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2014
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper examines Japan-South Korea trade agreements in 1949 and 1950 as the beginning of political and economic relations between Japan and South Korea in the postwar period.
    After losing in World War II, one of the most difficult challenges that Japanese diplomacy had to confront was the need to revise a vision of postwar Japan toward economic reconstruction. Japan had destroyed a friendly political and economic relationship with Northeast Asian countries because of its past colonial rule and military invasion. However, Japan needed to import a large amount of foodstuffs and raw materials, and export industrial goods as an important source of foreign exchange for recovering from the ruins of the war. Thus, Japanese elites began to regard it as natural that Japan would once again dominate trade with neighboring Asian countries.
    This vision of Japanese elites was first realized as a part of the Cold War strategies of the United States. Washington believed that Japan should rebuild political and economic relations with the capitalist countries in Northeast Asia in order to strengthen its economy against communist influences. Toward that end, GHQ/SCAP concluded a trade agreement between Japan and South Korea in 1949, creating an import market for foodstuffs and raw materials for Japan, and establishing a market for Japanese exports.
    As part of this strengthening push, Japanese elites took over American businesses. Because the agreement that the United States had concluded in 1949 was imperfect for them, the Japanese government tried to promote trading interests of the agreement in 1949, and to actualize the vision of Japanese elites revised. As a result, a new trade agreement signed by Japan and South Korea in 1950 facilitated a restored Japanese economic dominance over South Korea.
    The South Korean government, however, was in direct opposition to the postwar Japan that Japanese elites had created and the United States government had recognized, because both trade agreements ignored Korean trade interests. Although Koreans needed the trade with Japan, it was very important for them to be freed from Japan's colonial rule and to depart from trade systems of the past.
    The Korean War broke out immediately after the conclusion of the agreement in 1950. Japanese elites welcomed special procurements for the war, and Japanese exports to Korea increased considerably. This, however, was just the type of situation that the South Korean government was anxious to avoid. At the closing of the war's formal hostilities, South Korea's major trading partner shifted from Japan to the United States. Thus the Japanese people lost their first chance for normalizing relations with South Korea in postwar Northeast Asia.
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  • Tega Yusuke
    2012 Volume 2012 Issue 168 Pages 168_117-130
    Published: February 29, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2014
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    With the signing of the Paris Peace Accord in 1973, President Nixon brought the direct involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War to an end. The Paris Agreement has been widely recognized as one of the most successful results of Nixon and Kissinger's “realist” diplomacy. However, in light of the recent opening of masses of archival materials, a reassessment of “Nixinger” diplomacy has been taking place.
    Regarding the endgame of the Vietnam War, there has been controversy about whether the Paris Agreement represented the principles of “peace with honor” or “decent interval”. On the one hand, some scholars argue that the US persisted with the concept of “peace with honor”. In other words, the US sought peace that would guarantee lasting non-communist South Vietnamese independence. On the other hand, other scholars argue that the US simply pursued the strategy of placing a “decent interval” of time between US withdrawal and the collapse of South Vietnam. Namely, they insisted that the US admit to the 1975 collapse of South Vietnam in advance. Because of the actual collapse of the Saigon government in 1975, the “decent interval” theory is becoming the standard explanation.
    The “decent interval” theory is based on a tacit assumption. The premise is that due to the successful result of Sino-US-Soviet triangular diplomacy, the US perceived a decline in the importance of the Vietnam War and her “credibility” as a superpower no longer depended on the fate of the South Vietnam. Indeed, the US succeeded in creating the strategic environment in which both the Chinese and the Soviets sought improvement of their relationships with the US. Accordingly, Kissinger suggested to Nixon that the “decent interval” solution could be a reasonable way to end the war.
    However, Sino-US-Soviet triangular diplomacy actually brought about increased military assistance from the USSR and China to North Vietnam. Furthermore, Hanoi started the “Spring Offensive” in 1972 to destroy South Vietnam. As an unintended result, Indochina became an area of intensified Sino-Soviet competition and Hanoi stiffened its intransigence. Contrary to the Nixon Administration's expectations, the VietnamWar did not become localized. In this situation, Nixon could not give up the pursuit of “peace with honor”, as a North Vietnamese victory supported by the USSR and China meant the loss of US “credibility” as a superpower.
    In this article, I argue that although President Nixon understood the possibility of the collapse of South Vietnam after a “decent interval” from US withdrawal, he could not abandon the search for “peace with honor” in order to avoid the loss of US “credibility”.
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  • Hiroyuki Tosa
    2012 Volume 2012 Issue 168 Pages 168_131-145
    Published: February 29, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2014
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Marx-Leninism had justified its proletariats' dictatorship and had suppressed anarchism under the pretext of promoting emancipation from the oppression and exploitation of capitalism. Anarchism gradually re-emerged while oppression by Stalinism became conspicuous. Following the collapse of state socialism, neo-liberalism became hegemonic and rapid de-regulation brought in social polarization, which foregrounded the crisis of the electoral representative democracy as well as contradictions of capitalism. Responding to the crisis of the competitive democracy and neoliberal capitalism, new anarchism began to emerge including Zapatista insurgency (1994) and direct actions in Seattle (1999) or in New York (2011). Although some scholars also begin to examine its implications of new anarchism in the global politics, it is still remain marginalized in IR.
    This article will explore the politics of new anarchism in the context of global democratization beyond the territorial sovereignty system. First we critically examine the intricate relation between Hobbesian realism and anarchy by focusing upon the marginality of anarchism in the mainstream IR. Second we probe the current crisis of competitive representative democracy and emerging new anarchist movements by examining the incompatibility between the territorial state sovereignty and deepening of democracy. Third we probe implications of democracy against the state, savage democracy, by re-examining an argument on society against the state in the political anthropology. Last we examine the (im-)possibilities that anarchism would play a role of ‘democracy as a movement’ to promote ‘democracy as an institution’ such as electoral representative democracy beyond the limits of state sovereignty.
    As the global financial crisis indicates, the states cannot control a flow of powers effectively and tend to be shaken by its excess liquidity. While a growing flow of powers aggravates the crisis of the representative democracy based upon the territorial sovereignty, new anarchism begins to constitute a part of globalization from below by aiming to minimize domination. It is certain that the history of anarchism has continued to be a history of losers except a few cases of temporal autonomous zones such as the Paris commune (1871). However it is also certain that philosophical anarchism provides a valuable foundation for promoting global democracy by activating savage democracy.
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