Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T13:55:09.005Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Evolution of Japanese security policy and the House of Councilors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2021

Harukata Takenaka Open the ORCID record for Harukata Takenaka [Opens in a new window]
Harukata Takenaka*
Affiliation:
GRIPS: Seisaku Kenkyu Daigakuin Daigaku, Japan
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Japanese security policy has undergone a significant degree of evolution since the early 1990s. As a result, the range of responses Japan can make in international crisis has significantly expanded. The gradual evolution and expansion of the Japanese security policy culminated in the legislation of security-related bills under the second Abe administration in September 2015. The security-related bills dramatically transformed Japanese security policy as it allowed Japan to exercise the right of collective defense when certain conditions are met. The gradual change of Japanese security policy has so far gathered much academic attention. There is a strong claim in the existing literature on Japanese security policy that changes in security policies became possible because of reforms in domestic institutions, which had expanded the Japanese prime minister's power. It is the contention of this article that the Japanese prime minister is still faced with severe constraints from the Diet, in particular from the House of Councilors even after a series of institutional reforms has empowered Japanese prime ministers to significantly alter Japanese security policy. It demonstrates that as the House of Councilors has significant power in the Japanese political system, some Japanese prime ministers had to have the implementation of some security policies delayed or was driven to revise some policies they had originally envisioned through several case studies.

Keywords

House of councilorsprime ministersecurity policy
Type
Research Article
Information
Japanese Journal of Political Science , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , June 2021 , pp. 96 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arase, D (2007) Japan, the active state? Security policy after 9/11. Asian Survey 47, 560–583.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asahi Shimbun Seijibu Shuzaihan [Political Division of Asahi Shimbun] (2015) Abe Seiken no Ura no Kao [Hidden Face of the Abe Cabinet]. Tokyo: Kodansha.Google Scholar
Bagehot, R (1966) The English Constitution. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Catalinac, A (2007) Identity theory and foreign policy: explaining Japan's responses to the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 U.S. War in Iraq. Politics & Policy 35, 58–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Catalinac, A (2016) Electoral Reform and National Security in Japan: From Pork to Foreign Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Estevez-Abe, M (2006) Japan's shift toward a westminster system: a structural analysis of the 2005 lower house election and its aftermath. Asian Survey 46, 632–651.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Estévez-Abe, M, Hikotani, T and Nagahisa, T (2009) Japan's new executive leadership: how electoral rules make Japanese security policy. In Kohno, M and Rosenbluth, F (eds), Japan and the World: Japan's Contemporary Geopolitical Challenges – A Volume in Honor of the Memory and Intellectual Legacy of Asakawa Kan'ichi, New Haven: Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University, pp. 251–282.Google Scholar
Fujishige, H (2008) Reisengo ni okeru Jieitai no Yakuwari to sono Henyo [The role of the SDF and its change after the Cold War]. Kokusai Seiji [International Politics] 154, 95–114.Google Scholar
Hatakeyama, K (2015) Kokunai kihan to goriteki sentaku [Domestic norm and rational choice]. Kokusai Seiji [International Politics] 181, 115–128.Google Scholar
Hikotani, T (2018) The Japanese diet and defense policy-making. International Affairs 94, 791–814.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hughes, C (2004) Japan's Security Agendas. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publisher.Google Scholar
Hughes, C (2005) Japan's Re-emergence as a ‘Normal’ Military Power. Milton Park: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hughes, C (2009) Japan's Remilitarization. London: Institute for International Strategic Studies.Google Scholar
Hughes, C (2015) Japan's Foreign and Security Policy Under the ‘Abe Doctrine’: New Dynamism or New Dead End? Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Hughes, C (2017) Japan's strategic trajectory and collective self-defense: essential continuity or radical shift? The Journal of Japanese Studies 43, 93–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hughes, C and Krauss, E (2007) Japan's new security agenda. Survival 49, 157–176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liff, L (2015) Japan's defense policy: Abe the evolutionary. The Washington Quarterly 38, 79–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liff, L (2017) Policy by other means: collective self-defense and the politics of Japan's postwar constitutional reinterpretations. Asia Policy 24, 139–172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liff, L (2018) Japan's security policy in the ‘Abe Era’: radical transformation or evolutionary shift? Texas National Security Review 1, 8–34.Google Scholar
Lind, J (2016) Japan's security evolution. Policy Analysis Cato Institute 788, 1–11.Google Scholar
Midford, P (2003) Japan's responses to terror: dispatching the SDF to the Arabian Sea. Asian Survey 43, 329–335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Midford, P (2011) Rethinking Japanese Security and Public Opinion. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miyagi, T (2016) Gendai Nihon Gaiko shi [History of Contemporary Japanese Diplomacy]. Tokyo: Chuo Koron Shinsha.Google Scholar
Mulgan, A (2018) The Abe Administration and the Rise of the Prime Ministerial Executive. Milton Park: Routledge.Google Scholar
Oros, A (2008) Normalizing Japan: Politics Identity and the Evolution of Security Practice. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oros, A (2017) Japan's Security Renaissance. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sakaki, A and Lukner, K (2017) Japan's uncertain security environment and changes in its legislative-executive relations. Western European Politics 40, 139–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuels, R (2007) Securing Japan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Shinoda, T (2002) Kantei Gaiko [Prime Minister's Office Diplomacy]. Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha.Google Scholar
Shinoda, T (2006) Japan's top-down policy process to dispatch the SDF to Iraq. Japanese Journal of Political Science 7, 71–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shinoda, T (2007a) Koizumi Diplomacy: Japan's Kantei Approach to Foreign and Defense Affairs. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Shinoda, T (2007b) Becoming more realistic in the post-cold war: Japan's changing media and public opinion on national security. Japanese Journal of Political Science 8, 171–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singh, B (2013) Japan's Security Identity: From a Peace State to an International State. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smith, S (2019) Japan Rearmed: Politics of Military Power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soeya, Y (2011) A ‘normal’ middle power: interpreting changes in Japanese security policy in the 1990s and after. In Soeya, Y, Tadokoro, M and Welch, D (eds), Japan as a ‘Normal Country’? Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 72–97.Google Scholar
Takenaka, H (2006) Shushō Shihai [Dominance of the Prime Minister]. Tokyo: Chukō Shinsho.Google Scholar
Takenaka, H (2010) Sangiin to ha Nanika [The Role of House of Councilors]. Tokyo: Chukō Shinsha.Google Scholar
Takenaka, H (2019) Expansion of the prime minister's power in the Japanese parliamentary system: transformation of Japanese politics and institutional reforms. Asian Survey 59, 844–869.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thies, M and Yanai, Y (2013) Government with a twist: how bicameralism affects Japanese policy making. In Pekkanen, R, Reed, S and Scheiner, E (eds), Japan Decides 2012: The Japanese General Election. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 225–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thies, M and Yanai, Y (2014) Bicameralism vs. parliamentarism: lessons from Japan's twisted diet. Senkyo Kenkyu [Japanese Journal of Electoral Studies] 30, 60–74.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Takenaka Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/OK1WFZ
Link