PLIR 572: JAPAN IN WORLD AFFAIRS (Spring 2009)
   M 3:30-6:00 in Cabell 235

Prof. Len Schoppa
Office: Cabell 148 (tel: 924-3211)
Hrs: TR 3:30 – 5:00 (or appt)
e-mail: schoppa@virginia.edu

Today the world's system of international relations is in flux. The end of the Cold War, which until 1990 had provided for an amazing degree of continuity in the security relations of the United States, Japan, and other major powers during the postwar period, has forced all nations to reevaluate their foreign policies.  At the same time, the rise of China's economic and military power relative to both the United States and Japan has raised concerns about whether the two nations can accommodate this newcomer in a way that sustains the postwar liberal international economic order and peace in the region.

In both of these areas of flux, Japan is playing and will continue to play a crucial role.  With military spending near the top of the international league tables, Japan holds the potential to alter the balance of power in the East Asian region, depending on whether it agrees to reorient the U.S.-Japan alliance toward a new effort to contain China, instead supports efforts to engage China in a new collective security framework, or tilts toward China.  A continuing allergy to discussing security policy within the domestic political arena, however, has delayed any systematic reconsideration of Japan's alliance policy.

Similarly, the nation's wealth has given it the ability to play an important role in the maintenance of the system of liberal economic relations. Japan's domestic institutions, however, have thus far seemed oriented more toward exploiting (rather than maintaining) that system. Japan spent much of the 1980s and 1990s trying to resist U.S. pressure to genuinely open up its economy to international competition.  In the last few years, faced with new competition from China, it has erected protectionist barriers against imports from that country.  Struggling to escape from its “lost decade” of economic stagnation, Japan stands at a crossroads wondering whether it should continue trying to protect its declining economic sectors or give up this fight and accelerate its structural reforms by throwing open its doors to international competition.

This combination of developments means that, more than ever in the postwar period, the whole basis of Japanese foreign policy (the U.S.-Japan alliance and free riding on the liberal economic order) is being questioned. How will Japan respond? Will it fundamentally rethink its alliance strategy? Will it play a leadership role in helping to sustain the liberal economic role in the face of China's economic challenge?  These questions make it more important than ever for Americans to improve their understanding of Japanese foreign policy. It is the aim of this course to provide you with a basis for improving your understanding of Japan's place in world affairs.

Requirements:

This course is taught in a seminar format from beginning to end, which means students will be responsible for reading, thinking, writing, and presenting on all of the topics we discuss. There are no lectures or exams. Instead, students are expected to read assigned materials before they are scheduled for discussion, attend all sessions, write several short and one long paper, and make an oral presentation. This class is a graduate-level seminar which assumes students coming to it already have some background in international relations and Asian studies. If you don’t know what “realism” means in IR theory or you don’t know that Japan normalized relations with the People’s Republic of China in 1972, you may not be ready for this class. Those without sufficient background in these topics may wish to take my lecture class (PLIR 203 International Relations of East Asia), which I will offer next spring; or you may wish to take Intro to IR with Prof. Owen and a modern Japanese history class with Prof. Marcon.

The first portion of the semester covers Japan’s foreign policy from World War II until the end of the Cold War while the second portion covers contemporary topics in Japan’s foreign relations. Students will be graded on their level of participation in every discussion session. Absences will count as a “0” for that day. Rather than deciding which absences should be excused, I will drop the two lowest discussion grades to account for the likelihood that all students will have to miss a class or two at some point during the term. The discussion grade based on participation levels will count for 30 percent of the final grade.

During the first half of the semester, students will be asked to write two short (4 page) papers on the topics being discussed, with half the class responsible for each of four essay topics. These papers will be due at 10:00 am on the due date, and no extensions will be permitted. Each paper will be worth 10 percent of the final grade.

During the second half of the term, we will feature two oral presentations in each seminar class (for that reason, there are two topics, and two reading lists, for each date). Presentations by pairs of students assigned to each topic should last no more than 25-30 minutes, leaving time for other class members to join in the discussion. These presentations will count for 20 percent of the final grade. Students will then write an 18-20 page research paper, worth 30 percent of the final grade, on an aspect of the topic that they covered for their oral presentations.

Graduate students may choose to complete all of these assignments, weighted as described, OR they may opt out of the short papers and oral presentation in favor of preparing a longer (30 page) and more theoretical paper on a topic I approve.  These students' grades will be weighted as follows: final paper (50%) and participation (50%).  Grad students choosing this option should meet with Mr. Schoppa in the first week of classes to make this arrangement and begin discussing paper topic ideas with him.

Specific instructions regarding how to prepare for your class presentations and how to research, organize, and write your term paper are available via a link off the web version of the syllabus--just click here.

Readings:

Assigned readings are a very important part of the course. Much of the reading (especially for the first part of the class) will come from books available at the bookstore. Other readings (marked with a *) are available in the resources section of the Collab site for this class.

Since large parts of the following books are required reading for the course, the following books are available at the bookstore:

Kenneth B. Pyle, Japan Rising: The Resurgence of Japanese Power and Purpose (Century Foundation Books, 2007).

John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (W.W. Norton, 1999).

Andrew Oros, Normalizing Japan: Politics, Identity and the Evolution of Security Practice (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008).

Leonard Schoppa, Bargaining with Japan: What American Pressure Can and Cannot Do (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).

SCHEDULE AND ASSIGNMENTS

1. Introduction (Special Tuesday Meeting of our Monday Class on 1/13)

PART I: JAPAN’S FOREIGN POLICY FROM THE PACIFIC WAR THROUGH THE END OF THE COLD WAR

2. Japan’s Decision to Embark on a Strategy of Military Expansion (Monday 1/26)

Pyle, Japan Rising, pp. 1-209.

*Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991): 112-152.

Additional Reading: Michael Barnhart, Japan Prepares for Total War: The Search for Economic Security, 1919-1941 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987); Akira Iriye, The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific (New York: Longman, 1987); James B. Crowley, Japan’s Quest for Autonomy: National Security and Foreign Policy, 1930-1938 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966).

3. Defeat and Democratization (2/2)

Dower, Embracing Defeat, pp. 19-404.

Essay Question 1 due on February 2

4. The San Francisco Treaties and the Yoshida Doctrine (2/9)

Pyle, Japan Rising, pp. 210-277.

Oros, Normalizing Japan, pp. 22-70.

Additional Reading: Michael Yoshitsu, Japan and the San Francisco Peace Settlement (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983) ; Leonard Schoppa, “Domestic Politics,” in Steven K. Vogel, ed., U.S.-Japan Relations in a Changing World (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2002), pp. 94-124; Peter J. Katzenstein, Cultural Norms and National Security: Police and Military in Postwar Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996); Thomas Berger, Cultures of Antimilitarism: National Security in Germany and Japan (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998); Richard Samuels, Machiavelli’s Children (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003); J. Patrick Boyd and Richard Samuels, Nine Lives?: The Politics of Constitutional Reform in Japan (Washington, DC: East-West Center Washington, 2005).

.Essay Question 2 due on February 9

5. Japan’s Postwar Mercantilism and Pressures to Liberalize the Economy (2/16)

Schoppa, Bargaining with Japan, all.

Additional Reading: Richard Samuels, “Rich Nation Strong Army”: National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994); TJ Pempel, Regime Shift (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998); Edward Lincoln, Troubled times: U.S.-Japan Trade Relations in the 1990s (Brookings, 1999).

Essay Question 3 due on February 16

6. The End of the Cold War, the Rise of China, and Pressures to Normalize Japan’s Security Policies (2/23)

Pyle, Japan Rising, pp. 278-374.

Oros, Normalizing Japan, pp. 71-198.

Additional Reading: Richard Samuels, Securing Japan: Tokyo’s Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007); Tomohito Shinoda, Koizumi Diplomacy: Japan’s Kantei Approach to Foreign and Defense Affairs (University of Washington Press, 2007); Michael Green, Japan’s Reluctant Realism (Palgrave, 2003); Christopher Hughes, Japan’s Re-emergence as a ‘Normal’ Military Power (Routledge, 2006).

Essay Question 4 due on February 23

7. Movie and Discussion: Puraido: Unmei no toki (3/9)

PART II: TOPICS IN CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE FOREIGN RELATIONS

1. Japanese Participation in United Nations Peace-Keeping Missions in the 1990s (3/16)

*Aurelia George Mulgan, "International Peacekeeping and Japan's Role," Asian Survey 35:12 (December 1995): 1102-1117.

Additional Reading: Reinhard Drifte, Japan’s Quest for a Permanent Security Council Seat: A Matter of Pride or Justice? (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000); three articles in the February 2005 issue of Japan Echo.

2. Overseas Deployments (to the Indian Ocean and Iraq) in the 2000s (3/16)

*Christopher W. Hughes, “Japan’s Security Policy, the US-Japan Alliance, and the ‘War on Terror’: Incrementalism Confirmed or Radical Leap?” Australian Journal of International Affairs 58:4 (December 2004): 427-445.

Additional Reading: David Leheny, Think Global, Fear Local: Sex, Violence, and Anxiety in Contemporary Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006): second part of book; Tomohito Shinoda, Koizumi Diplomacy: Japan’s Kantei Approach to Foreign and Defense Affairs (University of Washington Press, 2007); Tomohito Shinoda, “Koizumi’s Top-Down Leadership in the Anti-Terrorism Legislation: The Impact of Political Institutional Changes,” SAIS Review 23:1 (.Winter-Spring 2003): 19-34; Tomohito Shinoda, “Japan’s Top-Down Policy Process to Dispatch the SDF to Iraq,” Japanese Journal of Political Science 7:1 (2006): 71-91.

3. The Question of How to Contain Chinese Military Power (3/23)

*Mike Mochizuki, “Japan’s Shifting Strategy Toward the Rise of China,” Journal of Strategic Studies 30:4-5 (August – October 2007): 739-776.

Additional Reading: Michael Green and Benjamin Self, "Japan's Changing China Policy," Survival 38:2 (Summer 1996): pp. 35-58; Caroline Rose, Sino-Japanese Relations: Facing the Past, Looking to the Future? (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005); Kent Calder, “China and Japan’s Simmering Rivalry,” Foreign Affairs 85:2 (2006): 129-139; David Kang, China Rising (Columbia University Press, 2007), chapter on Japan.

4. The Question of How to Deal with the North Korean Threat (3/23)

*Maaike Okano-Heijmans, “Japan as Spoiler in the Six-Party Talks: Single-Issue Politics and Economic Diplomacy Towards North Korea,” Japan Focus (an on-line journal), 2008, available at http://www.japanfocus.org/_Maaike_Okano_Heijmans-Japan_as_Spoiler_in_the_Six_Party_Talks__Single_Issue_Politics_and_Economic_Diplomacy_Towards_North_Korea.

Additional Reading: Selid S. Harrison, Korean Endgame: A Strategy for Reunification and U.S. Disengagement (Princeton: Century Foundation, 2002); Victor Cha, “Korea’s Place in the Axis,” Foreign Affairs 81:3 (May-June 2002), 79-90; Leon Sigal, “Negotiating with the North,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 59:6 (November/December 2003): 19-25; International Crisis Group, “Japan and North Korea: Bones of Contention,” Asia Report No 100, June 27, 2005—available online at http://www.ciaonet.org/wps/icg334/icg334.pdf; see other International Crisis Group updates on the North Korea situation.

5. Japan’s Regional Economic Strategy: Aid (3/30)

*Tsukasa Takamine, “A New Dynamism in Sino-Japanese Security Relations: Japan’s Strategic Use of Foreign Aid,” Pacific Review 18:4 (December 2005): 439-461.

Additional Reading: Steven W. Hook and Guang Zhang, "Japan's Aid Policy Since the Cold War: Rhetoric and Reality," Asian Survey 38 (November 1998): 1051-1066; Alan Rix, Japan’s Foreign Aid Challenge: Policy Reform and Aid Leadership (London: Routledge, 1993); David Arase, Buying Power: The Political Economy of Japan’s Foreign Aid (Lynne Rienner, 1995); Akitoshi Miyashita, Limits to Power: Asymmetric Dependence and Japanese Foreign aid Policy (Lexington Books, 2003); Saori Katada, “Why did Japan Suspend Foreign Aid to China? Japan's Foreign Aid Decision-making and Sources of Aid Sanction,”Social Science Japan Journal 4:1 (April, 2001): 39-58; Shino Watanabe’s dissertation “Foreign Aid and Influence: Paradoxical Power Dynamics in Japan’s ODA to China,” 2007; Tsukasa Takamine, Japan’s Development Aid to China: the Long-Running Foreign Policy of Engagement (London: Routledge, 2006).

6. Japan's Regional Economic Strategy: Finance (3/30)

*Saori Katada, "Japan and Asian Monetary Regionalization: Cultivating a New Regional Leadership after the Asian Financial Crisis," Geopolitics 7:1 (Summer 2002): 85-112.

Additional Reading: Chapters by Saori Katada and Jennifer Amyx in Ellis Krauss and T.J. Pempel, Beyond Bilateralism: U.S.-Japan Relations in the New East Asia (Stanford: Stanford University, 2003); Gregory Noble and John Ravenhill, eds., The Asian Financial Crisis and the Architecture of Global Finance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); William Grimes, Currency and Contest in East Asia: The Great Power Politics of Financial Regionalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009).

7. Japan's Regional Economic Strategy: Trade (4/6)

*Ellis Krauss, “The US, Japan, and Trade Liberalization: From Bilateralism to Regional Multilateralism to Regionalism Plus,” The Pacific Review 16:3 (2003): 307-329.

Additional Reading: David Shambaugh, “China Engages Asia: Reshaping the Regional Order,” International Security 29:3 (Winter 2004/05): 64-99; Neil Hughes, “A Trade War with China?” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2005; T.J. Pempel, Remapping East Asia: The Construction of a Region (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005).

8. Japan’s Multilateral / Global Trade Strategy (4/6)

*Saadia Pekkanen, Japan’s Aggressive Legalism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008), pp. 1-42.

Additional Reading: Christopher Meyerson, Domestic Politics and International Relations in U.S.-Japan Trade Policymaking: The GATT Uruguay Round Agriculture Negotiations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); C. Fred Bergsten, Takatoshi Ito, and Marcus Noland, No More Bashing: Building a New Japan-United States Economic Relationship (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 2001); Edward Lincoln, Troubled Times: U.S.-Japan Trade Relations in the 1990s (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1999); Leonard Schoppa, “The Social Context in Coercive International Bargaining," International Organization 53:2 (Spring 1999): 307-342.

9. Japan-South Korea Relations (4/13)

*Eric Marquardt, ''The Importance of Strong Relations Between Japan and South Korea,'' The Power and Interest News Report, April 6, 2005—can be accessed in the archives section of the PINR website: http://www.pinr.com/index.php.

Additional Reading: Victor Cha, Alignment Despite Antagonism: The United States-Korea-Japan Security Triangle (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999); Tae-Hyo Kim and Brad Glosserman, eds., The Future of U.S.-Korea-Japan Relations: Balancing Values and Interests (Washington, DC: CSIS, 2004); one article in the August 2004 issue of Japan Echo.

10. Russo-Japanese Relations (4/13)

*Michael Green, Japan’s Reluctant Realism (Palgrave, 2001): 145-166.

Additional Reading: Yutaka Okuyama, “The Dispute Over the Kurile Islands Between Japan and Russia in the 1990s,” Pacific Affairs 76 (Spring 2003): 37-54; Gilbert Rozman, ed., Japan and Russia: The Tortuous Path to Normalization, 1949-1999 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000); Masato Kimura and David A. Welch, “Specifying ‘Interests’: Japan’s Claim to the Northern Territories and Its Implications for International Relations Theory,” International Studies Quarterly 42 (1998): pp. 213-244.

11. Japan and Cooperation to Improve the Environment (4/20)

*Yves Tiberghien and Miranda A. Schreurs, “High Noon in Japan: Embedded Symbolism and Post-2001 Kyoto Protocol Politics,” Global Environmental Politics 7:4 (November 2007): 70-91.

Additional Reading: John Browne, “Beyond Kyoto,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2004; Isao Miyaoka, Legitimacy in International Society: Japan’s Reaction to Global Wildlife Preservation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); Miranda A. Schreurs, Environmental Politics in Japan, Germany, and the United States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

12. Student Topic (Japan’s Efforts to Promote Human Rights and Democracy?; Japan-Europe Relations?) (4/20)

13. Possible Student Topic and Wrap-Up (4/27)

RESEARCH PAPER DUE (Monday, April 27th, at the end of class)

PROF. SCHOPPA'S CLASS RULES

1. LATE PAPERS: The final grade on the paper will be docked one letter for every day it is late unless the delay has been approved by me (based on a very good reason) at least a week before the due date. Last minute computer problems are not an excuse!!! Back-up your work on disks to avoid losing it, and leave time for you to deal with last minute hitches (like a broken printer, a line in the computer lab) by aiming to finish well before the deadline.

2. PLAGIARISM: Presenting someone else's words or ideas without attribution in a research paper or other written assignment constitutes an offense of "plagiarism" that is grounds for expulsion under the University's Honor System. If you are using more than four words in a row that are identical to those in another source, you should put them in quotation marks and cite the source of the quotation. If you refer to a fact (e.g. statistical data; historical details) or idea that is not “general knowledge,” you should identify the source, including the page number, from which this fact or idea is drawn. I consider something to be “general knowledge” if I could easily find this “fact” in three different published sources. For example, many sources tell us Columbus sailed to the Americas in 1492, so you would not need to cite this date.