India’s Pakistan problem: operation Parakram revisited

ABSTRACT

Why did India launch and later withdraw from the exercise in coercive diplomacy – Operation Parakram – against Pakistan in response to the attack on India’s Parliament by terrorists based in that country? This paper marshals factors operating at the systemic, state and individual/small-group levels of analysis to show that, despite the paucity of evidence on decisionmaking of the kind required for an effective foreign policy analysis (FPA) approach, a reasonably clear picture can be developed. It combines deductive logic relating to state behavior in a nuclearized environment with the limited empirical evidence available to show that India never intended to go to war and that the operation was essentially a bluff that, having eventually reached a dead end, was called off.     

Competing Visions of Japan’s International Engagement: Japan First vs Global Japan

ABSTRACT

The state and direction of Japan’s international engagement can best be understood as a competition between the ‘Japan first’ and ‘global Japan’ schools of thought. In light of the ever worsening security environment surrounding Japan, the gap between the Japan first school advocating a focus on the immediate needs of Japan’s territorial defence and the global Japan school arguing for more global engagement is widening. The competition between the two will continue to shape the direction of Japan’s foreign and security posture – and importantly, the global Japan school is far from winning, contrary to what Abe’s hyperactive diplomacy might suggest.     

Water power: the domestic and geostrategic dimensions of Turkey’s GAP Project

The Southeastern Anatolia Project (Güneydogu Anadolu Projesi, GAP), which was designed for the socio-economic development of south-east Turkey, has multiple political and strategic dimensions. While GAP was intended to narrow the socio-economic gap between the south-east and the rest of Turkey through development of the region, and to secure Turkey’s future energy needs, the associated hydro-politics intertwine domestic and geopolitics in relation to water flow to downstream riparian states Syria and Iraq, securing Turkey a geostrategic position in the broader Middle Eastern context in terms of regional hydro-hegemony, while also impacting on relations with Kurds at home and in surrounding states.     

Normative power Europe and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the EU’s peacebuilding narrative meets local narratives

ABSTRACT

This article conceives the EU’s normative power in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a narrative that projects views of the international system, the EU’s identity as a peacebuilder, and its positions on specific conflict issues. Highlighting the importance of local narratives as cultural filters, this article argues that a high degree of alignment of local narratives with key elements of the EU’s normative power narrative facilitates positive images of the EU as a normative power in peacebuilding, whilst diverging local narratives tend to give rise to more critical views. Yet, the case of Palestine also shows that strong narrative alignment with the EU may encourage high expectations, resulting in critical views about inconsistencies between the EU’s normative aspirations and its actual foreign policy conduct.     

Opening Legations: Japan’s First Resident Minister and the Diplomatic Corps in Europe

This analysis shows how Japanese legations, first established in Europe during the 1870s, were not just symbolic gestures but played a key role in the Meiji government’s quest for international recognition. The concept of resident ambassador was unfamiliar beyond the European world, so the transition from sending visiting envoys to establishing permanent missions was a pivotal stage. Here a comparative framework gauges the importance of Japan’s new strategy within the context of similar experiments by states such as the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and subsequently China and Siam. The case of Sameshima Naonobu, Japan’s first resident minister in Europe, highlights the cultural barriers the Japanese faced. Assisted by Frederick Marshall, an Englishman at the Japanese Legation in Paris, Sameshima’s research on the mysteries encoded in this particular social universe offers some insight on the nature of the diplomatic corps in Europe.     

A step as normative power: the EU’s human rights policy towards North Korea

This paper examines the extent to which the European Union (EU) could be a normative power with the ability to define what passes for normal in a globalized world in its North Korean policy. In contrast with a rationalist view that limits the possibility of engagement and underestimates the implications of the EU’s role in promoting North Korea’s human rights conditions, constructivist-inspired approaches provide an alternative explanation by arguing that the pursuit of value-oriented policies is constitutive of actors’ perceived normative identities. To this end, this paper investigates how humanitarian aid, institutionalized dialogues and multilateral approach are employed to endorse the EU’s position as a normative power. In so doing, it also argues how and to what extent these normative operations are affected by its virtue, deontological and consequentialist ethics.     

Borders of memory: affirmation and contestation over Japan’s heritage

Abstract

This essay, introducing the special issue on ‘Borders of Memory’, aims to shed light on the links between memory and heritage in contemporary Japan. It does so by examining how heritage sites serve as spaces within which collective memory is both affirmed and contested. Heritage sites enable us to survey the contours of the borders of memory that exist between different memory collectives. An analysis of South Korean and Chinese objections to the Meiji Industrial Sites shows how these heritage sites work as borders of memory, spaces where the competing collective memories of neighbouring East Asian governments and societies clash and rub up against one another. This analysis is then extended to the four articles that make up this special issue. In each case, it is the competing meanings invested in the site, and the struggle over the narrative within which it is incorporated, that results in such sites coming to be demarcated as borders of memory. Understanding these heritage sites as bordered spaces allows us to see such them as being not only where antagonistic collective memories come into contact, but also spaces through which they connect. The existence of such spaces enables the political process of articulating the stories associated with different memory collectives.     

Subcontracting,facilitating and qualities of regional power: the UK’s partial pivot to Asia

Asia Europe Journal - This article explores the UK’s foreign policy “pivot” to Asia, a decade after its tentative beginnings. This pivot is understood to be Britain’s...     

Impediments to Abe’s Proposal to Cast off Japan’s Postwar System

A fundamental change in Japanese politics means that neo-conservatives now are meeting fewer obstacles. The wide margin enjoyed by the Liberal Democratic Party led by Shinzo Abe in Japan＇ s July 2013 election for the upper house （House of Councillors） was a second resounding victory for the LDP,     

Has-Been,Wannabe, or Leader: Europe’s Role in the World After the 2003 European Security Strategy

In December 2003, the European Union presented its “security strategy”, endorsed by all member states, to provide guidance for Europe’s common foreign security and defense policy. In substance, this document is not an expression of a growing strategic rift between Europe and the United States. One of the purposes it serves, however, is defining Europe’s own, separate “identity”. It reflects the increasing awareness that Europeans need to employ their power more effectively in the service of international peace and security, as much as politically possible. Disagreements on key issues remain in Europe, however, and the practical implications of the security strategy still need to be worked out.     

Japan’s reluctance in East Asian economic integration

Until 1997, the only preferential trading arrangement, which existed in East Asia, was the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA). Former Prime Minister of Malaysia Tun Dr. Mahathir had realized earlier the deficiency of AFTA in terms of stimulating economic development. In 1990, he proposed to ASEAN members to form the East Asian Economic Group. Due to regional political factors, his proposal was turned down and replaced with the East Asian Economic Caucus in 1992. In 1997, again, he proposed that ASEAN needed to establish large economic cooperation with other countries in East Asia. His suggestion had been warmly responded by the members of East Asian countries. At the ASEAN summit in Manila 1999, ASEAN Plus 3 (APT) was created. ASEAN, China, Japan, and South Korea had agreed and reached a joint statement to form a free-trade area by the year 2020. The establishment of APT was timely since most countries in the world are moving toward establishing wider or larger economic blocs due to the failure of multilateralism of the WTO in creating a new trade agreement. However, there is a shortcoming in the process of building APT, in the minimal and uncertain role of Japan in integrating economies in East Asia. This behavior has disappointed members of the group. The intention of this paper is to discuss the behavior of Japan in the economic integration process in East Asia.

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Capabilities and aspirations: South Korea’s rise as a middle power

In November 2010, the G20 Summit was held in Seoul. The G20 has increasingly replaced the G8 as being the premier forum for international economic cooperation, but in November 2010, it was the first time that a summit was held in country that was not a G8 member. It was by the Korean government seen as evidence of the country finally having achieved the goal of becoming an advanced nation playing, while still constrained by the division of the peninsula, a global role in line with its economic standing. The article argues that this has been a constant theme in Korea’s foreign policy since it was originally formulated in 1994 as part of the country’s globalization policy. This addition of an intentional dimension, to the objective capabilities created during the previous decades, has increasingly resulted in the type of behavior associated with middle power status.     

Korea’s middle power activism and peacekeeping operations

This paper deals with Korea’s peacekeeping operations (PKO) activities that are important to assess its middle power activism. The numbers of Korean PKO troops lessened drastically during the period 2003–2007. The purpose of this paper’s analysis is to discover the determinants of this drastic change. For the analysis, economic growth and state budgets are classified as economic factors, while partisanship and political leadership are classified as political factors. The analysis led to the following conclusion. Regarding economic factors, the economic growth and the state and defense budget stay relatively constant and do not match the fluctuation of the PKO activities in Korea. Regarding political factors, there is no correspondence between partisanship and the PKO policy, because the liberal governments of Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun implemented different PKO policies. The political leadership factor appears to be rather significant. Both Kim Dae Jung and Lee Myung Bak eagerly seek international cooperation. In contrast, Roh Moo Hyun emphasizes self-reliance. Thus, we conclude that the political leadership factor is most likely to influence the fluctuation of PKO activities in Korea.     

Communicating South Africa’s soft power: Agents,instruments and recipients

New scholarly literature that focuses on the currency of soft power is emerging in the analysis of South Africa’s foreign policy. This nascent strand of discourse seeks to capture the nexus between the ideational value of soft power and Pretoria’s foreign policy. Despite pockets of literature in this regard, there has been little analysis of the communicative settings and adaptations of soft power in the South African context. Within this analytical context, this article aims to contribute to existing discourse on South Africa’s soft power by probing the agents, sources and subjects involved in its cultivation and unpacking the links between these communicative environments. These issues are critical, given the recent emphasis on the role and utility of soft power for achieving South Africa’s foreign policy ambitions. The article stresses that, in the long term, the deepening of South Africa’s soft power capability and influence will depend largely on the extent of the strategic calibration between the communicative realms of actors, instruments and recipients.     

Memorables in the CAFIU Delegation’s Visit to Japan,New Zealand and Australia

<正>At the invitation of the Kazankai Foundation of Japan,New Zealand Rotary and Australian Rotary,a 5-member CAFIU delegation headed by Deputy Secretary-General Liu Kaiyang visited Japan,New Zealand and Australia from October28 to November 6,2013.I have the honor to be a member of the delegation to visit the abovementioned three countries,which left an     

Bringing politics back in: the introduction of the ‘performative power’ of counterterrorism

While it is sensible that governments and academics endeavour to assess the effectiveness of counterterrorism policies, this article argues that it is almost impossible to measure arithmetically the outcome of counterterrorism efforts for a variety of reasons. However, this does not mean that the effect of governmental policy cannot and should not be assessed. This article argues that it is not necessarily the policy measures and their intended results as such, but much more the way in which they are presented and perceived, that determine the overall effect of the policy in question. The article introduces the concept of ‘performativity’, which involves the extent to which a national government, by means of its official counterterrorism policy and corresponding discourse, is successful in selling its representation of events, its set of solutions to the terrorist problem, as well as being able to set the tone for the overall discourse on terrorism and counterterrorism. Due to the distinct relation between the performative power of counterterrorism efforts and the arc of violence carried out by terrorist movements, analysing the level of performativity will provide an indication to the effectiveness of counterterrorism policies. It is argued that a low level of performative power generally has a more rapidly neutralising effect on radicalisation and political violence than large-scale, public counterterrorism efforts.     

Children’s paintings and photos on reconstruction of China’s quake-hit areas exhibited in Japan

It is now one year since the devastating earthquake in Wenchuan of China. An exhibition of children’s paintings and photographs on the topic of post-earthquake reconstruction has been held jointly by the Chinese Association for International Understanding,