"Book Abstract and Keywords: The study of Japanese politics has flourished over the past several decades. This Handbook provides a state-of-the-field overview for students and researchers of Japanese. The volume also serves to introduce Japanese politics to readers less familiar with Japan. In addition, the volume has a theme of "evaluating Japan's democracy." Taken as a whole, the volume provides a positive evaluation of the state of Japan's democracy. The volume is divided into two parts, roughly corresponding to domestic Japanese politics and Japan's international politics. Within the domestic politics part, there are four distinct sections: "Domestic Political Actors and Institutions," covering the Japanese Constitution, electoral systems, prime minister, Diet, bureaucracy, judiciary, and local government; "Political Parties and Coalitions," covering the Liberal Democratic Party, coalition government, Kōmeitō, and the political opposition; "Policymaking and the Public," covering the policymaking process, public opinion, civil society, and populism; and, "Political Economy and Social Policy," covering industrial, energy, social welfare, agricultural, monetary, and immigration policies, as well as social inequality. In the international relations part, there are four sections: "International Relations Frameworks," covering grand strategy, international organizations, and international status; "International Political Economy," covering trade, finance, foreign direct investment, the environment, economic regionalism, and the linkage between security and economics; "International Security," covering remilitarization, global and regional security multilateralism, nuclear nonproliferation, naval power, space security, and cybersecurity; and, "Foreign Relations" covering Japan's relations with the United States, China, South Korea, ASEAN, India, the European Union, and Russia. Keywords: international relations, comparative politics, democracy, international order, alliances, space security, elections, Liberal Democratic Party, multilateralism, remilitarization, international organizations, populism, civil society, coalitions, political parties, trade, finance monetary policy, foreign direct investment, cybersecurity"--

Since the end of World War II, Japan has not sought to remilitarize, and its postwar constitution commits to renouncing aggressive warfare. Yet many inside and outside Japan have asked whether the country should or will return to commanding armed forces amid an increasingly challenging regional and global context and as domestic politics have shifted in favor of demonstrations of national strength. Tom Phuong Le offers a novel explanation of Japan’s reluctance to remilitarize that foregrounds the relationship between demographics and security. Japan’s Aging Peace demonstrates how changing perceptions of security across generations have culminated in a culture of antimilitarism that constrains the government’s efforts to pursue a more martial foreign policy. Le challenges a simple opposition between militarism and pacifism, arguing that Japanese security discourse should be understood in terms of “multiple militarisms,” which can legitimate choices such as the mobilization of the Japan Self-Defense Forces for peacekeeping operations and humanitarian relief missions. Le highlights how factors that are not typically linked to security policy, such as aging and declining populations and gender inequality, have played crucial roles. He contends that the case of Japan challenges the presumption in international relations scholarship that states must pursue the use of force or be punished, showing how widespread normative beliefs have restrained Japanese policy makers. Drawing on interviews with policy makers, military personnel, atomic bomb survivors, museum coordinators, grassroots activists, and other stakeholders, as well as analysis of peace museums and social movements, Japan’s Aging Peace provides new insights for scholars of Asian politics, international relations, and Japanese foreign policy.

Col. Frank Kowalski served as the Chief of Staff of the American military advisory group that helped establish the National Police Reserve, the predecessor to the Japan Self-Defense Forces during its first two years of existence. His work provides a detailed account of the manning, logistics, and personalities involved in standing up—on short notice—of a force of approximately 75,000, while sharing insights about the diplomatic, political, legal, and constitutional challenges his headquarters and his Japanese counterparts faced in rearming Japan in the wake of the sudden outbreak of the Korean War. Published in Japanese in 1969, this is the first English version of this edition, and includes a biographic section about Kowalski.

Is Japan on a path towards assuming a greater military role internationally, or has the recent military normalisation ground to a halt since the premiership of Junichiro Koizumi? In this book, Christopher W. Hughes assesses developments in defence expenditure, civilmilitary relations, domestic and international militaryindustrial complexes, Japans procurement of regional and global power-projection capabilities, the expansion of USJapan cooperation, and attitudes towards nuclear weapons, constitutional revision and the use of military force. In all of these areas, dynamic and long-term changes outweigh Japans short-term political logjam over security policy. Hughes argues that many post-war constraints on Japans military role are still eroding, and that Tokyo is moving towards a more assertive military role and strengthened USJapan cooperation. Japans remilitarisation will boost its international security role and the dominance of the USJapan alliance in regional and global security affairs, but will need to be carefully managed if it is not to become a source of destabilising tensions.

This open access book assesses the profound impact of Japan’s aspirations to become a great power on Japanese security, democracy and foreign relations. Rather than viewing the process of normalization and rejuvenation as two decades of remilitarization in face of rapidly changing strategic environment and domestic political circumstances, this volume contextualizes Japan’s contemporary international relations against the longer grain of Japanese historical interactions. It demonstrates that policies and statecraft in the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s era are a continuation of a long, unbroken and arduous effort by successive generations of leaders to preserve Japanese autonomy, enhance security and advance Japanese national interests. Arguing against the notion that Japan cannot work with China as long as the US-Japan alliance is in place, the book suggests that Tokyo could forge constructive relations with Beijing by engaging China in joint projects in and outside of the Asia-Pacific in issue areas such as infrastructure development or in the provision of international public goods. It also submits that an improvement in Japan-China relations would enhance rather than detract Japan-US relations and that Tokyo will find that her new found autonomy in the US-Japan alliance would not only accord her more political respect and strategic latitude, but also allow her to ameliorate the excesses of American foreign policy adventurism, paving for her to become a truly normal great power.

The decisions that shape the policy of weapons procurement are an important area of national security policy. This is all the more true for China, which during recent decades has vacillated between different sources and directions of military build-up. This book explores the politics of military procurement in China under the successive leaderships of Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. It shows how China’s political and military leaders have sought to adjust military procurement policy to meet China's strategic objectives, to relate it to non-military needs, to strike a balance between the import of weapons and indigenous production, and to determine the connections between hardware and other components of military power. Exploring in detail five major shifts in the nation’s military procurement, it traces the considerations and negotiations among China's civilian and military leaderships. By doing so, it offers both a conceptual framework and empirical grounds for evaluating the factors that shape China's military procurement directions, as well as their limitations, prospects, and operational implications. As the first book to study comprehensively and systematically the attributes shaping China's military procurement, it will be of great interest to students and scholars of Chinese politics, Chinese history and military and strategic studies.

According to the mass media, Japanese nationalism is on the rise. Tokyo's stance on national security is becoming uncharacteristically assertive. This book explores the prospect of Japan's remilitarization and challenges the preconceived approaches taken by existing theories on Japan's national security. The book examines Japan's pacifism since the Second World War, developments in Japanese military build-up since the late 1960s, and Japan's responses to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Controversies between realism and social constructivism continue to dominate Japan's national security debates, but neither is fully able to make pointed predictions. This study, in bridging the gap between these two rigid approaches, provides an understanding of this vital aspect of Japanese national security.