National security culture and alliance: the U.S.-Japan alliance after the cold war

Update Item Information
Title National security culture and alliance: the U.S.-Japan alliance after the cold war
Publication Type dissertation
School or College College of Social & Behavioral Science
Department Political Science
Author Haraguchi, Koji
Date 2016
Description Why and how has the U.S.-Japan alliance survived the end of the Cold War? More generally what happens to an alliance when the international security environment changes? The present dissertation aims at developing a new model of alliance politics that explains the continuity of an alliance by focusing on cultural factors of international security. Building on the constructivist theory of international relations, the present dissertation argues that the U.S.-Japan alliance has survived even after the demise of the Soviet Union, against which the alliance was originally formed, because the two allies have interdependent national security cultures that are deeply institutionalized in their defense policies. The two allies not only share identity as capitalist democracies, but also embrace complementary norms of national security. Namely, to secure its longstanding norm of homeland protection, the United States needs Japan's assistance in maintaining its military presence in Asia so that it can minimize threats from the region. For its part, Japan, in an Asian regional security environment full of threats, needs the United Sates' assistance in maintaining the antimilitarist national security norm that grew from the bitter experience and memory of World War II. By analyzing domestic processes of revising basic defense policies after the Cold War in Washington and Tokyo, as well as the bilateral negotiations for the New Guidelines for Defense Cooperation between the United Sates and Japan, the present dissertation demonstrates that institutionalized national security cultures in both countries provided ideational bases for their post-Cold War national security policies. These ideational constructs established the foundation for defense policies that the two countries developed to deal with new sources of national security threats in the Asia Pacific region.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject constructivism; foreign policy; Japan; military alliance; national security; United States
Dissertation Name Doctor of Philosophy
Language eng
Rights Management ©Koji Haraguchi
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 2,344,756 bytes
Identifier etd3/id/4193
ARK ark:/87278/s6gx7kwh
Setname ir_etd
ID 197739
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6gx7kwh
Back to Search Results