| 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. |
