Okinawa: women, bases and US-Japan relations

The goal of this paper is to examine the process by which rapesand other acts of sexual violence lead to changes in internationalrelations. This paper focuses on the rape of an Okinawan schoolgirlin 1995 because it presents a mysterious puzzle: given the changinginternational structural and epistemic environment, why didthe US and Japanese governments fail to answer local calls formeasures to prevent future rapes and other crimes by soldiers,perhaps by reducing the size of US forces deployed in Okinawa?By looking into factors that affected the decision-making processwithin the US and Japanese governments, this paper tries toexplain why the issue of US bases in Okinawa evolved in theway it has since 1995.