An examination of the factors constraining Japan's capability for contributing to the international order in the post-cold-war era

Abstract

The cold war which dominated the foreign policies of most of the world's industrialised nations has ended. Japan, as an economic superpower, one of the three economic poles of the post-cold-war world, with a huge interest in its stability and prosperity, has a foreign policy approach inappropriate to a country of such regional and global prominence. In the first major foreign policy crisis of the new world order, the Gulf Crisis of 1990- 1991, Japan was immobilised by deficiencies in its political system, a lack of appreciation among its leaders and populace of where its national interests lay, and the peculiar constraints of its“national Constitution. This sub-thesis explores the way in which Japan's capability to contribute to the new world order is constrained by its political structure, national strategy, constitutional limits, and regional conditions. Chapter One examines the way in which Japan's political structure constrains the country's capability for contributing to the new world order by producing a diffusion of power, a diffusion of responsibility for policy development and implementation, and an absence of competition for power on the basis of policy difference. Chapter Two examines the way in which Japan is hindered from contributing to international order by its pursuit of short term economic goals at the expense of bringing to its dealings with the external world a well-defined sense of national interest. Chapter Three examines the limitations that the Peace Constitution places on Japan by excluding a security role from its international contributions. Chapter Four examines the factors constraining Japan from greater involvement in the increasingly interdependent Asia-Pacific region.