scholarly journals The Limited Role of the Japanese Military: The 2003 Iraq War and the War on the Islamic State

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Mieczysław P. Boduszyński ◽  
Christopher K. Lamont ◽  
Philip Streich
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Security Threat ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Defensive Realism

What determines Japan's willingness to flex its limited military muscle abroad? While analysts and scholars closely watched Japanese "militarization" under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (2012-2020), Japan had already deployed its military overseas over a decade ago in support of U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. By contrast, in 2014, Japan was unwilling to support U.S.-led operations against the Islamic State (ISIL) in Iraq and Syria. This presents a puzzle, as the fight against ISIL offered the kind of international legitimacy that the 2003 Iraq invasion lacked, and Japan traditionally seeks. Moreover, ISIL had killed Japanese citizens. This paper explains Japan's varying policies in Iraq in 2003 and 2014, thereby shedding light on the determinants of Japanese national security policy more generally. Our argument focuses on domestic political factors (especially the pluralist foreign policymaking) and strategic thinking rooted in realism. We argue that Japanese policies are driven by domestic politics, profound suspicions about the utility of military force and fears of becoming entangled in a seemingly never-ending conflict. While Koizumi may have had more room to manoeuvre despite long-standing public opposition to overseas military deployments when he dispatched the SDF to Iraq in 2003, it is precisely such deeply-entrenched popular anathema that many blame for the Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) historic and devastating loss in the 2009 election. Abe was unwilling to repeat such a risky venture in 2014. We also highlight the role of realist calculations on both Japanese elites and the public, who by 2014 had come to see China rather than state or non-state actors in the Middle East as a primary security threat. We thus confirm Midford's finding that "defensive realism" tends to drive Japanese foreign policy thinking. Japanese citizens are not pacifists, as conventional wisdom might hold. Instead, Japanese public opinion supports the use of minimum military force when and if Japan is attacked to defend Japan's national sovereignty and territory but is much more suspicious of such power when it comes to deployments and the pursuit of other foreign policy goals.

INFLUENCE OF US NEOCONSERVATISM ON FORMATION OF NATIONAL SECURITY PARADIGM

2020 ◽  
pp. 113-120
Author(s):  
Mukhammadolim Mukhammadsidiqov ◽  
Abrar Turaev
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
National Security ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The Impact

This article analyzes the impact of neoconservative ideology on the formation of national security paradigms in the United States and reveals the impact of views and ideas put forward by U.S. neoconservatives on the formation of public administration, especially security goals in domestic and foreign policy. In particular, the role of Albert Walstetter, a well-known proponent of neoconservative views, in the formation of security concepts is discussed. The role of political philosopher Leo Strauss’s political-philosophical and military-strategic approaches in the development of neoconservative ideology and the conceptual basis of modern security problems are theoretically analyzed. It is emphasized that the assessment of the impact of neoconservative ideology on the formation of security policy in the development of political processes related to public administration in the United States depends on understanding the content of formed neoconservative security concepts. Based on the predominance of national interests based on national security approaches in the ideology of neoconservatism, the influence of neoconservatism on the interpretation of international relations as a highly conflicted, the anarchic environment is revealed in the formation of the neoconservative paradigm of security. In the following periods, the implementation of Albert Walstetter and Leo Strauss’s military-strategic ideas under the influence of neoconservatives in the US administration, in particular, the practice of proposing to continue the foreign policy course on the use of military force as a factor of national security.

Intervention and Intransitivity: Public Opinion, Social Choice, and the Use of Military Force Abroad

1995 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 534-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt Taylor Gaubatz
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Public Preferences ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
The Impact

This article argues that the problems identified in the literature on public choice should critically affect our research on public opinion and our understanding of the impact of public opinion on foreign policy. While a robust literature has emerged around social choice issues in political science, there has been remarkably little appreciation for these problems in the literature on public opinion in general and on public opinion and foreign policy in particular. The potential importance of social choice problems for understanding the nature and role of public opinion in foreign policy making is demonstrated through an examination of American public attitudes about military intervention abroad. In particular, drawing on several common descriptions of the underlying dimensionality of public attitudes on major foreign policy issues, it is shown that there may be important intransitivities in the ordering of public preferences at the aggregate level on policy choices such as those considered by American decision makers in the period leading up to the Gulf War. Without new approaches to public-opinion polling that take these problems into consideration, it will be difficult to make credible claims about the role of public opinion in theforeignpolicy process.

N.Ya. Danilevsky’s Participation in M.N. Katkov’s Periodicals in 1880s

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 135-148
Author(s):  
Elena V. Perevalova
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
The Third ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Common

The article analyzes the participation of N.Ya. Danilevsky in the periodicals of the authoritative conservative publicist of the 1860–1880s M.N. Katkov – “Russian Vestnik” magazine and “Moscow Vedomosti” journal. The author identifies the reasons that brought together the thinker and the editors of influential conservative periodicals and analyzes the common views of Danilevsky and Katkov on a number of important issues of Russian domestic and foreign policy. Special attention is paid to the “Slavic question”, which was differently interpreted by Danilevsky and the writers of the Katkov’s circle, however that did not prevent the thinker to participate in those periodicals in the 1880s. The author of the article attempts to determine the role of the fragments of the third, unfinished part of Danilevsky’s work “Darwinism” published after his death in the «Russian Vestnik», in the polemics over the teachings of Charles Darwin that went on in Katkov's periodicals and the liberal democratic press in the 1880s.

Democratic Politics and Foreign Affairs

2020 ◽  
pp. 13-36
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Role Of Government ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy

Whether foreign policy should be exempted from democratic politics has been discussed since the early days of modern democracy. While this debate has oscillated between executive-friendly and democracy-friendly positions, it has neglected the role of political parties as essential actors in democratic decision-making and in providing cues to the public more broadly. Institutionalist and ideational theories of the so-called Democratic Peace in particular have neglected political parties, even though they silently assume that foreign and security policy is a matter of party-political contestation. Therefore, the theoretical framework outlined in this chapter also draws on scholarship in Foreign Policy Analysis that examined the role of ‘government ideology’. It suggests two propositions to inform the empirical analyses, namely 1) that foreign affairs are systematically contested, rather than shielded from democratic politics; 2) that party-political contestation is structured along the left/right dimension.

Public Opinion on Foreign Policy Issues

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard C. Eichenberg
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Major Focus ◽  
Attitudes Toward War ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact

Scholars and governments are interested in four sets of questions concerning public opinion on foreign policy and national security policy. First, what do public opinion polls measure? How do citizens, who are generally uninformed about foreign policy and world affairs, form opinions on these matters? Second, how rational is public opinion? Is it stable or volatile? Are opinions coherent? Do opinions plausibly reflect the flow of world events? Third, what factors influence the formation of citizen opinions? Specifically, what is the impact of fundamental attitudes toward war and military force, partisanship, ideology, and gender? Finally, how universal are the determinants of citizen opinion, especially on crucial issues of war and peace? Are the findings in global comparisons the same as those in the American or European contexts? Considerable scholarship has been devoted to these four questions. Scholars now characterize public opinion as rational, in the sense that it is fairly stable, coherent, and responsive to real world events. Attitudes toward war and military force are a major focus of the research literature because many specific policy attitudes flow from fundamental views of war. Gender has also become a major focus of research because many studies find that women are less supportive of the use of military force for most purposes. Finally, scholars are beginning to discover that some opinion patterns are universal across societies, while others are more affected by the individual characteristics of national societies. Studies of global public opinion have expanded greatly, with recent scholarship focusing on global attitudes toward gender equality, immigration, and climate change.

Tradition and Variation in Brazilian Foreign Policy

1967 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Bradford Burns
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Military Force ◽  
World Peace ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Foreign Service ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Social And Economic Development ◽  
National Power ◽  
The Military

Mounting Anxieties, frustrations, and fears in Brazil effected a change of government by military force at the end of March of 1964. President Joáo Goulart fled to an Uruguayan exile. Congress, urged by the military, conferred supreme executive power on Marshal Humberto Castelo Branco. Many other sweeping changes followed. None was more complete than the about-face taken in foreign policy.Castelo Branco spoke out early and unequivocally in his regime in favor of a return to more traditional policies. The graduation exercise of the foreign service school, the Instituto Rio-Branco, on July 31, 1964, provided the propitious place and moment for him to outline the foreign policy goals of his government. He paid homage to the ideals consecrated by tradition: world peace, disarmament, selfdetermination, non-intervention, and anti-colonialism. Moving into the more pragmatic realm of national interests, the president emphasized that his government's foreign policy aimed to increase national power through social and economic development.

scholarly journals Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC): More Than A Branch Of Armed Forces

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
HAMZA DEMIREL
Keyword(s):  
International System ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Military Force ◽  
State Security ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Long Run ◽  
State Sponsorship ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
State Sponsorship Of Terrorism

This study aims at analyzing the role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) extraterritorial activities in attaining Iran’s foreign policy goals. The regime has deliberately supported several armed non-state actors to achieve the goals, particularly as seen in its relations with Lebanese Hezbollah and Shia groups in Iraq, the IRGC has served as a node in providing a broad range of state support. Although the IRGC has the characteristics of conventional armed forces, its extraterritorial activities contradict the legal frame of ‘use of military force’ and mostly fit the characteristics of ‘state sponsorship of terrorism.’ Moreover, these activities challenge international norms and provoke other regional actors. This condition creates an obstacle to Iran’s integration into the international system which is increasingly globalized and interconnected and an environment which is costly to live within and leaves it isolated. These attitudes paradoxically place Iran in a situation that challenges the goals of ‘state security and survival’ and ‘becoming the regional power’ in the long run. Thus, it is argued that the real reason behind the regime’s insistence on this strategy is preserving the current political system and the power of current ruling elites; in brief, it is labeled ‘regime survival’ in this study.

scholarly journals Democratization and Foreign Policy Reforms in Turkey: Europeanization of Turkish Politics?

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaprak Gürsoy
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Divergence Of Opinion ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Eu

AbstractThe European Union membership process has had an impact on Turkish domestic politics and foreign policy. However, when compared with previous candidate countries to the EU, the Europeanization of politics in Turkey has not been an even process. The reformation of politics in Turkey has had three main characteristics. First, instead of the pace of the reforms being linear, there has been a periodic rise and fall of interest in introducing amendments. Second, the reforms have not necessarily replaced past practices, rather they have only introduced new ones in addition to the old ways of doing politics. Finally, there has been considerable opposition to the reforms in Turkey, partially because the government does not seem to follow the liberal-democratic trajectory set out by the EU membership process. The delays in enacting the constitutional and legal changes and the biased selection of laws and practices that are being amended do not give the impression that the government is sincere. Whether the amendments are in fact Europeanizing Turkey or pulling it away from its Western and secular political framework is a significant question leading to conflict among different factions in society. This divergence of opinion, in turn, results in further stalling the reforms.

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