Hartwig Hummel
(Institute for Social Sciences, University of Braunschweig, Germany)
"Pax Nipponica? Global Hegemony and Japan in IR Theory"
paper for the Symposium on "The Global Meaning of Japan: European and Asian Perspectives", 20-22 March, 1998, organized by the Centre for Japanese Studies, University of Sheffield in co-operation with the International Research Centre for Japanese Studies, Kyoto.
© Hartwig Hummel, 10 March 1998.
Contents:
1. Introduction: Making sense of Japan in International Relations (IR)
2. The rise of Japan and the "rise and fall of great powers"
3. The rise of Japan and the "rise of the trading state"
4. The rise of Japan and "trilateralism"
5. Global hegemony and Japan
Author's address:
Dr. Hartwig Hummel
Institute for Social Sciences, University of Braunschweig
Wendenring 1
D-38114 Braunschweig, Germany
phone: +49-531-391-3129
fax: +49-531-391-8211
mail: [email protected]
1
1. Introduction: Making sense of Japan in International Relations (IR)
The task of this paper is to make sense of Japan in terms of international relations. More specifically, the concept of hegemony will be applied to Japan's global position. The paper cannot
seriously claim to cover the huge body of literature both about Japan's global position and
about the theory of international relations including the concept of hegemony. The modest
intention of writing this paper is to present an outline of the main arguments. First, the paper
will discuss Japanese hegemony from the perspectives of neorealism and liberal institutionalism, which are the two conventional paradigms of the academic discipline of "International
Relations" (IR). Then, the conventional perspective will be criticized and an alternative approach will be introduced including a redefinition of the concept of hegemony. This approach
will be based on the critical theory of international politics.
Regional studies in general and Japanese studies in particular are prone to shallow intellectual
fashions as long as they do not make efforts to reflect theoretically. For example, during the
1970s scholars of Japanese studies followed the fashion of talking about Japanese uniqueness,
much too often just echoing Japan's Nihonjinron arguments. In the 1980s it became fashionable among Japan experts to describe Japan as an economic superpower striving for the domination of the world economy.1 With the burst of the bubble economy in Japan, and much more
so with the recent financial crisis of the Newly Industrializing Economies (NIEs) of Asia,
there seems to emerge a new fashion of disdaining a crisis ridden Japan unable to adapt itself
to the conditions of neoliberal globalization.
These and other fashionable debates do not really advance our understanding of Japan and of
its meaning for world society and world order. First, we cannot really comprehend what is
going on because we are unable to distinguish short-term fluctuations and long-term trends.
Second, we will be surprised by sudden changes again and again because we do not recognize
the structural contradictions causing such changes. Third, we cannot define exactly who the
actors are. And finally, lacking a theoretical understanding of long-term developments, structural contradictions and relevant actors, we are unable to imagine possible scenarios for the
future in a well-founded way.
In this paper I am going to present the basic theoretical frameworks of IR which I hope will
allow us to make sense of Japan in terms of world order.2 In order to understand these frameworks it is helpful to remember the origins of IR. The academic discipline of IR was founded
after the horrors of World War I in order to advance the understanding of international politics
1
Ezra Vogel popularized the concepts of "Japan as number one" and of "Pax Nipponica" (Vogel
1979, 1986).
2
For a critical review of the history and basic concepts of IR cf. Hoffmann (1977), Holsti (1985),
Kauppi/ Viotti (1991), Baldwin (1993), Groom/ Light (1994), Booth/ Smith (1995), Dougherty/
Pfaltzgraff (1997).
2
and to make possible the rational management of foreign affairs, thus contributing to a peaceful world order. Being a social science discipline, IR has always been marked by a pluralism
of theoretical and methodological premises, assumptions, and concepts. IR textbooks generally sort the many diverse approaches into two or three basic theoretical frameworks or paradigms. There are two conventional approaches: neorealism, which is a reformulation of the
classical realism of the 1940s, and liberal institutionalism, which developed from the so-called
idealism of the early years of the discipline. Different versions of Marxism used to constitute
the third paradigm of IR. For some time Marxist approaches enjoyed considerable influence
especially in development studies. But they have never been fully accepted by mainstream IR,
much less so since the proclaimed end of the alternatives to metropolitan capitalism, i.e. the
end of the Third World and the end of the socialist bloc. However in the late 1980s critical
theories of IR emerged which are again challenging conventional IR, such as feminist theory
of IR, post-modern approaches, or social constructivism (Brown 1994). I think that the critical
approach most relevant for the question to be dealt with in this paper is neo-Gramscian Marxism, because it explicitly focuses on the concept of hegemony.
Table 1 includes the main features of the three IR paradigms in terms of the level of analysis,
the long-terms trends, structural contradictions, actors, world order scenarios and the meaning
of global hegemony. In what follows, each of the three paradigms will be elaborated and then
applied to the specific question of Japan's meaning for international relations. The questions to
be asked are (see table 2):
· Who is "Japan" in international relations?
· What does the "rise" of Japan mean?
· What would Japanese "hegemony" mean?
3
Table 1: Basic IR paradigms
level of analysis
long-term trends
structural contradictions
actors
neorealism
liberal institutionalism
critical theory
· international balance of
power
· rise and fall of great
powers
· interdependent world
society
· civilizing process including rise of the trading
state and liberal peace
· unequal development
· imperfect pluralism
· crisis of modernity
· irrational ideologies
· global political economy
· history of great socioeconomic transformations
and political revolutions
· structural crisis of the
capitalist mode of production
· social contradictions
· pluralism of state and
non-state actors seeking
to maximize their individual wealth
· global governance vs.
global disorder
· social forces based on
relations of
(re)production and on
political consciousness
· hegemonic vs. nonhegemonic vs. counterhegemonic world order
projects
· legitimacy of a global
"historical bloc"
· collective action problems (security dilemma,
free rider)
· hegemonic rivalry
· ideological/cultural
diversity (clash of civilizations)
· nation-states as unitary
actors seeking to maximize power
world order scenarios
· hegemonic stability vs.
unstable multipolarity
meaning of global hegemony
· (military) superpower
· development model
(if concept of hegemony
is used at all)
Table 2: The meaning of Japan in basic IR paradigms
who is "Japan"?
what does the rise of
Japan mean?
what does Japanese hegemony mean?
neorealism
liberal institutionalism
· the Japanese government representing Japan
as a unitary nation-state
seeking to maximize its
power in relation to other
states
· rising economic power
of Japan to be transformed into military
power
· leadership of Japan in
world politics
· Japanese society as a set · Japanese capitalism as
of institutions and actors, focus for class formation
based on shared values
and the Japanese state as
focus of the construction
of identity
4
critical theory
· progressing socioecono- · increasing centrality of
mic and cultural develop- Japan in the global politiment of Japan
cal economy
· Japan as most developed · Japanese capitalism at
society
the center of the international division of labor
· Japanese élites at the
center of trilateralism
2. The rise of Japan and the "rise and fall of great powers"
Neorealism presupposes that international politics differ from domestic politics because of the
absence of a powerful world government which leaves international relations in a state of anarchy and never-ending conflict. According to neorealism, the anarchical structure of the international system forces nation-states to maximize their power relative to the other states (by
unilateral means or by alliance strategies) in order to preserve their sovereignty and to protect
their national interests (Waltz 1979). Only a hegemonic power can temporarily overcome the
anarchical power struggle and maintain world peace and an open world economy (Kindleberger 1973, Krasner 1976, Gilpin 1987). Neorealists conceptualize hegemony as military and
economic power preponderance of one nation-state in relation to the rest of the world (or
macro-region), allowing the hegemonic power to enforce a stable global (or regional) international order.
The book "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" by Paul Kennedy (Kennedy 1987) has become a very popular example of the neorealist reasoning about hegemony. Kennedy tells the
history of the leading states in the international system seeking to increase their wealth and
their power, starting with the global rise of European great powers in the 15th century. According to Kennedy wealth is essential to back military power, while military power is necessary
to acquire and protect wealth. Both military power and wealth have to be balanced carefully. If
too many resources are devoted to military purposes, relative economic decline will follow. If
military ambitions extend too far the benefits of expansion will not be compensated by economic gains. Kennedy regards different growth rates among the leading nations as the cause
for the shift of economic and military power and eventually the rise and decline of hegemonic
powers.
Kennedy's book is particularly interesting for our discussion here because he explicitly addresses Japan in terms of the rise and fall of the great powers. He describes the United States
as a great power in relative decline because of "imperial overstretch" of its military sector and
decreasing competitiveness of its economy. According to Kennedy Japan on the other hand
has experienced a remarkable economic rise relative to the other great powers. It should be
stressed that the indicators Kennedy mentions here are relative indicators, such as Japan's
share of world GNP or world trade, the competitiveness of Japan's factories and workers and
Japan's leading position in high technology, the superior market power of Japanese companies
and the rise of Japan to become the world's top creditor nation. Kennedy points to the fact that
there is not (yet) a corresponding military power of Japan. Again he uses relative indicators
such as the modest international rank of its navy, air force and ground force, the modest size
and low GNP share of its military expenditures, compared to major NATO countries, and the
relative lack of support for military policy in Japan's public and among its neighbor countries.
5
For many neorealists Japan is the obvious candidate to succeed the United States as hegemonic power. Nevertheless it is evident that according to neorealist criteria Japan does not
qualify for a hegemonic position in the international system yet. There are several reasons:
First, most fundamentally Japan stubbornly lacks the both the will and the military capabilities
to enforce its hegemonic position and its own concept of world order, although Kennedy and
other neorealists expect that perhaps in the early 21st century Japan inevitably will back its
economic status by a corresponding military power and that it will acquire nuclear weapons.3
But a major arms build up in Japan including nuclear armament and the projection of military
force to conflicts abroad would require a fundamental shift of domestic political forces and
constitutional change the prospects of which look extremely dim. Neither does Japan monopolize or control high-technologies essential for the production of advanced weaponry, as for
example Ishihara claimed in his best-seller "The Japan that can say 'No'" (Ishihara 1991). The
relevant technology is not owned by the Japanese state but by private companies which proved
to be extremely reluctant so far to get involved in arms production which they fear would involve them in political disputes and would require secrecy hindering the civilian use of these
technologies.4
Second, Japan did never have an overwhelming economic lead over the other G-7 countries
and it may even have lost its superior economic and technological dynamism recently, because
of the costs of fixing the financial sector after the burst of the bubble economies in Japan and
the NIEs. In a similar way Germany is said to have lost of its relative economic dynamism for
some time as a results of the financial burdens of unification. Moreover, the US economy and
US companies seem to have recovered and to make up ground economically in relation to
Japan and Germany. It should be mentioned that Kennedy refuted the relevance of a what he
called a possible temporary economic crisis in Japan hypothetically even before the current
problems of Japan's economy. He pointed to the long-term structural causes for Japan's economic superiority, such as favorable terms-of-trade, technological lead, effective organization
and coordination of the Japanese enterprise system, high savings rate, and the qualified working force.
Third, inasmuch as the position and influence of a state in international organizations indicates its power status, Japan can hardly be called a hegemonic power. It is not a permanent
member of the United Nations Security Council. It remains number two in the IMF and the
World Bank, both of which are still dominated by the U.S. government and by U.S. trained
economists. It has never been regarded as a leader of the G-7 or the OECD. At most the de3
Kenneth Waltz wrote: "In recent years, the desire of Japan's leaders to play a militarily more assertive role has become apparent, a natural response to Japan's enhanced economic standing." (Waltz
1993: 65), see also: Matthews/Matsuyama (1993). For Japan's nuclear future cf. Doyle/ Doyle
(1992), Harrison (1995, 1996).
4
For this argument cf..
6
facto control of the Asian Development Bank by Japan could be interpreted as an indication of
Japan's regional hegemony in Asia (Wan Ming 1995).
Fourth, according to neorealism hegemony does not develop incrementally, but has to be
founded by deliberate political action. In his article about the hegemonic cycle George Modelski argued that the era of what he called a world power5 starts with a formative global conflict,
followed by a legitimizing settlement and institutional innovations (Modelski 1978). So far,
history does not record such decisive events for the foundation of a Japanese hegemony.
This leads to the conclusion that at present Japan does not qualify for hegemony according to
the criteria of neorealism. In fact, neorealism provides for alternative interpretations of the
contemporary world order and the role of Japan. In the realist debate there are at least two
alternative concepts of hegemony and two concepts of a non-hegemonic world order.
(1) In the article quoted above George Modelski suggested a theoretical alternative to an imminent shift of hegemony from the US to another state. He mentions the historical case of two
successive eras of British hegemony, Pax Britannica I, which lasted from 1713 to the American and French revolutions, and Pax Britannica II from 1815 to the imperialist power struggle
at the end of the 19th century (Modelski 1978: 225). In a similar way there could very well be
a Pax Americana II instead of Pax Nipponica (Nye 1990).
(2) Another idea is to think of a joint US-Japanese leadership or "bigemony". According to
this idea the US would mainly act as world policeman and Japan as financier and as a kind of
economic co-leader. In order to stay within the neorealist paradigm this would require a political federation between the US and Japan and a common Nichibei economy, or it would even
mean that Japan actually becomes a kind of 51st state of the United States (Johnson 1990,
Funabashi 1992, George 1992).
(3) Huntington's "clash of civilization" concept is perhaps the most popular scenario of a nonhegemonic world order (Huntington 1993, 1996). The concept of international anarchy
marked by inevitable international conflict has been reconstructed by Huntington in terms of
permanent cultural cleavages. He predicted that "the fault lines between civilizations will be
the battle lines of the future" (Huntington 1993:22). According to Huntington there are eight
5
Modelski avoids the term hegemony. He uses the concept of world power instead which he defines
as follows: "Entities uniquely dominant in the global political system will be called world powers.
... More technically we might define world powers as those units monopolizing (that is, controlling
more than one half of) the market for (or the supply of) order-keeping in the global layer of interdependence." (Modelski 1978: 216) "... world (or global) powers control (or substantially control) the
global political system and hence also have the capacity to regulate other global processes (such as
long-distance travel). But they do not control national, or local, political systems or processes."
(Modelski 1978: 216, note 7)
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civilizations, among them the Western, the Islamic, the Sinic and the Japanese civilizations.
Huntington expects an alliance of Islamic fundamentalists and the newly developing economies of the Sinic civilization to fight against Western dominance. It is interesting that Huntington regards Japan as a separate civilization which he does not see as natural part or partner
of the Sinic civilization. Huntington rather implies that Japan could serve the interests of the
West and its own interests by providing a bridge to Asia.
(4) In a somehow similar way the proponents of the economic regionalization thesis draw the
picture of an anarchic world order marked by global conflict between protectionist trading
blocs. Again the position of Japan looks ambiguous. On the one hand there is suspicion that
Japan is trying to build up its own Yen bloc in East Asia. On the other hand Japan is seen as
an essential partner of the United States in APEC to support US access to Asian markets and
to counterbalance European integration (Frankel 1993, Funabashi 1995).
To sum up one can say that the power concept of hegemony does not give us a definite and
convincing answer to the question of the global meaning of Japan. It seems to be clear however, that according to the neorealist criteria Japan does not qualify for hegemonic status at
present or in the near future.
3. The rise of Japan and "rise of the trading state"
Liberal institutionalism starts with the premise that the contemporary world is marked by a
high degree of interdependence among developed nations (Keohane/Nye 1977). This means
that it does not make sense any more to regard developed nation-states as self-confined,
autonomous entities. It is necessary to understand them as parts of larger regional and global
orders. Nor should nation-states be taken as unitary actors, for socioeconomic development
has been accompanied by the progressing differentiation of domestic social and political structures. Liberal institutionalists therefore presuppose pluralist political interaction among state
and non-state actors in developed democratic societies. According to liberal institutionalism
there is a complex mix of cooperation and competition among political institutions and social
interest groups seeking to maximize their own individual benefits (wealth). Although these
actors are basically motivated by their own special interests, they understand that they can best
satisfy their interests by integrating themselves into society. The same logic applies to nationstates: it is rational for them not to stay isolated but to participate in international interdependence and integration. The rationale of cooperation and interdependence is given expression by
shared values and institutions. To put it in other words: the successful establishment of common institutions and shared values constitutes an essential part of the civilizing process of
national societies as well as of world society.6
6
The classical text is "The Civilizing Process" by Norbert Elias (Elias 1936/1978).
8
Liberal institutionalists (Oye 1986, Keohane 1989, Ruggie 1993) think that once international
interdependence has evolved as far as it has in the late 20th century, war and the use of military force for the accomplishment of national interests have become irrational and obsolete.
Richard Rosecrance, for example, supported this argument in his book about "the rise of the
trading state" (Rosecrance 1986).7 He distinguishes two types of states: military states trying
to advance their national welfare by military conquest and trading states seeking to maximize
national wealth by the peaceful expansion of trade. Rosecrance thinks that military conquest
does not pay any more. This is because of the exploding costs of armament, the unpredictability of modern warfare and the destructive capabilities of total war and weapons of mass destruction far beyond any potential gains. Rosecrance does not expect the conversion from a
military state to a trading state to happen automatically. He thinks that such fundamental
changes are triggered by social learning from history to be followed by deliberate political
action. According to this argument the policy makers of the United States who are still proud
to be a military superpower did not yet learn this lesson, although in U.S. society a change of
attitude has already begun starting with the war in Vietnam. Unlike the U.S., Japan and Germany were forced to learn their lesson as a result of the devastation of World War II and of
the complete defeat of military expansionism. After 1945 both converted from military states
to trading states. Contrary to the popular opinion that Japan and Germany have to become
"normal states" after the end of the cold war it would thus be logical to call the U.S. an "unnormal state" and Germany and Japan "normal states" (Hummel 1996).
In recent years the trading state argument has been backed by the theory of the liberal peace.
This theory starts with the observation that (developed) democracies do not fight each other in
war (Russett 1993). The explanation for this behavior is based on classical liberalism.8 It is
said that in democracies the citizens' unwillingness to bear the human and material costs of
war as well as the well established manner of resolving conflicts in a civilized way would
delegitimate warfare in general and prevent any war against fellow democracies. It should be
mentioned, however, that liberal institutionalism does not necessarily lead to a strictly pacifist
position as long as there are non-democratic and underdeveloped states which could threaten
democracies. Thus liberal institutionalism advocates the maintenance of defensive military
capabilities and of military alliances of democracies against aggressors.
Liberal institutionalists are concerned with the promotion of development and with the rational and efficient management of international interdependence by international organizations and international regimes. Obviously the neorealist power concept of hegemony does not
fit into the liberal institutionalist paradigm. I think for liberal institutionalists hegemony (if
applicable at all) means something like a development model. The most developed society
7
8
Maull (1990) and Funabashi (1991) proposed the term "civilian power".
This theory goes back to "Perpetual Peace" by Immanuel Kant (Kant 1795/1917).
9
could be called a hegemonic one in the sense that its institutions and values show other nations the way to follow and should be transferred to less developed societies. Explicitly of
implicitly liberal institutionalism adheres to a unilinear concept of development and expects
that modernization will ultimately turn all societies into liberal democratic and capitalist societies, the most developed form of social organization. Francis Fukuyama, for example,
thinks that "the triumph of the West, of the Western idea, is evident first of all in the total exhaustion of viable systemic alternatives to Western liberalism." (Fukuyama 1989: 3) He then
proclaims "the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution
and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." (Fukuyama 1989: 4). Fukuyama applies the same argument to Japan and East Asia:
" (...) the very fact that the essential elements of economic and political liberalism have
been so successfully grafted onto uniquely Japanese traditions and institutions guarantees
their survival in the long run. More important is the contribution that Japan has made in
turn to world history by following in the footsteps of the Untied States to create a truly universal consumer culture that has become both a symbol and an underpinning of the universal homogeneous state. (...) The economic success of the other newly industrializing countries (NICs) in Asia following on the example of Japan is by now a familiar story. What is
important (...) is that political liberalism has been following economic liberalism, more
slowly than many had hoped but with seeming inevitability." (Fukuyama 1989:10)
In terms of liberal institutionalism the question then is: does Japanese society constitute the
most developed form of a peaceful liberal democratic and capitalist society, the development
model other nations will have to follow? One way to answer this question could be to have a
look at the ranking lists used in development studies in order to compare national levels of
development. It should suffice here to refer to two popular aggregate indicators used by international organization: first, the per-capita income in US Dollars according to the reports of the
World Bank, and second, the Human Development Index (HDI) published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a combined indicator, calculated from
the percentage to which each country fails to reach the highest international level in health,
education, and income, each weighted one third of the aggregate HDI. The indicators used to
compute the HDI are: life expectancy at birth (for health), adult literacy rate and average
number of years of school attendance (for education), and adjusted average income in purchasing power parities (for income). In table 3 the figures for 1993 are shown. 1993 was the
year when Japan reached the highest ranking ever. It ranked number one according to HDI and
number 3 according to per-capita income and was surpassed only by the small countries of
Luxembourg and Switzerland.9 The 1997 ranking for Japan remained the same for per capita
income, but is worse for HDI. In the recalculated 1997 HDI table Japan is surpassed by Canada, France, Norway, and the United States, and shares rank 6 with Finland and the Netherlands.10
9
World Bank: World Development Report 1997, quoted in: Hauchler/ Messner/ Nuscheler (1997:
444-453)
10
UNDP: World Development Report 1997, quoted in: Hauchler/ Messner/ Nuscheler (1997: 444-
10
Table 3: The development level of Japan according to U.N. development indicators
Human Development Index Ranking
UNDP: World Development Report 1993
1. Japan
2. Canada
3. Norway
4. Switzerland
5. Sweden
6. USA
7. Australia
8. France
9. Netherlands
10. United Kingdom
11. Iceland
12. Germany
Per-Capita Income in US$ Ranking
World Bank: World Development Report 1993
0,983
0,982
0,979
0,978
0,977
0,976
0,972
0,970
0,964
0,964
0,960
0,957
1. Switzerland
2. Luxembourg
3. Japan
4. Finland
5. Sweden
6. Norway
7. Denmark
8. Germany
9. Iceland
10. USA
11. Canada
12. United Arab Emirates
32.250
29.010
25.840
24.540
23.780
22.830
22.440
22.360
22.090
21.810
20.380
19.870
source: Hauchler, Ingomar (ed.): Globale Trends 93/94. Daten zur Weltentwicklung. Frankfurt a.M.:
Fischer , 1993, 392, 395.
According to these figures Japan indeed could be regarded as the most developed country in
the world. Indeed, Japan, a model trading state, a technological superpower, a good example
for social cohesion, and a school for new management methods, being the core of the emerging Asia-Pacific region, seems to qualify as global development model. However there are
also many doubts about whether Japanese institutions and values really best reflect international interdependence and globalization. Most importantly the shortcomings of Japanese democracy, the economic peculiarities of Japan's capitalism and the lack of internationalization
of Japanese society leave grave doubts about the universal applicability of the Japanese
model. This assessment is supported by the fact that the Japanese model does not seem to gain
much influence in international organizations, although recently Japanese leaders increasingly
promote the Japanese development model (Sakakibara 1993, Wade 1996).
But more fundamentally liberal institutionalists raise doubts about whether it is meaningful at
all to attribute hegemonic status to Japan or any other nation. Most importantly they do not
necessarily support the concept of a national culture, because of domestic pluralism and heterogeneity. Thus some parts of "Japan" such as the management system might rightfully be
regarded to be most advanced globally, but other parts, for example democracy, obviously lag
behind global development. Besides, the concept of development as such raises severe theo453).
11
retical problems. First, there seem to be inevitable contradictions in any multidimensional
concept of development or of the civilizing process, such as democratic participation vs. rational management of interdependence, social justice vs. promotion of economic growth,
peaceful resolution of conflict vs. U.N. interventionism. Second, there is also a debate going
on that it might not be desirable or even possible for the whole world to follow the development of the OECD nations. Third, the discussion about the most adequate indicator for measuring development proves that the concept of development as such is under continuous revision, so that the meaning of Japan is changing as well, depending on the development concept
used. In the end liberal institutionalism does not present a definitive answer to the question
about the status of Japan in world society.
4. The rise of Japan and "trilateralism"
Both neorealists and liberal institutionalists doubt Japan's global hegemony. According to
neorealism Japan lacks the military power to qualify for hegemony. According to liberal institutionalism Japan does not necessarily constitute the global development model. The two conventional paradigms of IR claim to base their conclusions on the examination of the objective
reality, observed and measured by positivist methods. Seen from the perspective of critical
theory however, it seems that both neorealists and liberal institutionalists do not really want to
accept the notion of a Japanese hegemony. Neorealists are part of the realist tradition which
constitutes the mainstream of IR. It should be remembered that the appeal of classical realism
for IR originated from its legitimizing the struggle of the Allied powers against fascism.
Therefore it would be difficult to imagine neorealists to forget about the past and accept Japan
as hegemonic leader of the new world order. Similarly, liberal institutionalism originated from
the attempts to resurrect a world order based on Western values after World Wars I and II.
Liberal institutionalists, claiming that the West has just won the Cold War, cannot be expected
to accept to idea that Japan who is usually considered to be a non-Western culture (or whose
Westernness is in any case doubted) will be the global development model of the future.
Scholars inspired by critical theory question the core concepts of neorealism and liberal institutionalism. They criticize neorealism because its state-centric explanations fail to grasp the
complex nature of the contemporary world order. For instance, in a post-modern world economy, marked by transnational production and global financial flows, it looks strange to focus
primarily on international trade. Similarly, in a world of civil wars the concept of national
defense has little relevance. They also criticize liberal institutionalism, because it presupposes
rational actors, who believe that cooperation will benefit everybody. In doing so, liberal institutionalism fails to imagine concepts of rationality other than those of classical economy.
Consequently, liberal institutionalists have great pains to understand post-modern social
movements opposing (neoliberal) economic "development" or anti-modern nationalist and
fundamentalist movements opposing Western "modernity".
12
Approaches to IR based on critical theory move beyond the limits of the two conventional
paradigms. The frequent claim of conventional theories to be value-free and objective is rejected. Instead IR scholars guided by critical theory try to be aware of the ideological framework and the political interests behind any study of world order. They also seek to include the
dimension of history as well as the dimension of comprehensive political economy into their
studies (Cox 1981). To me the framework of neo-Gramscian scholars like Robert Cox and
Stephen Gill proved to be most useful for examining the question about Japanese hegemony.
Cox and Gill took up core concepts developed by the Italian communist philosopher and politician Antonio Gramsci who opposed the political determinism of orthodox MarxismLeninism and developed his own original concepts and political strategies. According to
Gramsci the rule of the dominant class is not primarily based on the domination of the economy and the state by force but rather on a combination of consent and coercion. Cox (1983:
164) put it this way: "To the extent that the consensual aspect of power is in the forefront,
hegemony prevails." Gill added that hegemony as consensual or legitimate rule has to be
based in social structures in a comprehensive way: "The Gramscian concept of hegemony is
based upon a structural concept of power, where the constitution of a stable, hegemonic order
implies a strong 'fit' or compatibility between dominant ideas, institutions and material capabilities at both national and international levels in the GPE [Global Political Economy]." (Gill
1986: 206). This means that practically all parts of a society regard the way a society is organized as legitimate in the sense that they think it is organized in the best possible way and that
they all can benefit from society. Thus they accept (or ignore) the fact that in fact society is
organized according to the interests of the ruling class who benefits most. Gramsci stressed
that the establishment of consensual rule and the maintenance of so-called "hegemonic blocs"
together with other classes requires the ruling class to care for continuous intellectual leadership and political organization.
Cox, Gill and others apply Gramsci's concepts to the study of the global political economy and
the world order. They think that, first, the actors of the global political economy are not states
or nations but social forces based on relations of production who become actors when they
develop their own political consciousness and organization. Second, neo-Gramscian scholars
stress the historical and material contexts of international relations. They criticize the capitalist world order as economically unstable and structurally violent. According to them, a capitalist world order can only be stabilized for some time by institutionalizing a specific mode of
regulation and class compromise, supported by an "hegemonic" intellectual discourse. Third,
the basic structures of the global political economy change historically in the course of great
socio-economic transformations (such as the world economic crisis of the 1930s) and political
revolutions (such as the establishment of mass democracy in Western societies after World
War I and II).
13
Historically the Cold War era was marked by the Fordist regulation of capitalist accumulation,
with the establishment of welfare states being legitimated by anti-communism. The economic
and political élites of the United States were both the intellectual and political organizers of
the world order of the "Free World". The period of the hegemonic order of the Western world
during Pax Americana came to an end in the 1970s when both Fordism and the welfare state
model became unsustainable because of the increasing importance of transnational corporations and transnational financial capital and when U.S. élites could no longer maintain Pax
Americana as national political project alone. Stephen Gill (1990) and Kees van der Pijl
(1989) describe in detail how Fordism was replaced by neoliberalism and how the rule of
capitalist metropolitan élites was reorganized in the form of trilateralism. The project of trilateralism means equal participation of U.S., Western European and Japanese élites in the intellectual design and the political organization of the world order. Stephen Gill conducted one of
the few detailed studies about the trilateral élite networks (Gill 1990). He examined the Trilateral Commission which was founded in 1972 by a small group of U.S. élite members in order
to bring together influential individuals of the U.S., Western Europe and Japan. Gill thinks
that originally one major task of the Trilateral Commission was "the promotion and assistance
of the incorporation of Japan into the core of the US-centred alliance structure, concomitant
with its growing economic strength" (Gill 1986: 212). Among neo-Gramscian scholars there is
a debate going on whether the Trilateral Commission and other private groups or political
institutions like the G-7 will be able to organize a transnational hegemony of neoliberalism
based on trilateralist élites. I personally think that the hegemony of such a political project has
become much more probable once aggressive, unilateralist versions of neoliberalism such as
Thatcherism or Reaganomics have been replaced by softer versions of cooperative, regulated
neoliberalism perhaps best represented by Clinton, Blair, Jospin or Japan's LDP-Social Democratic coalition governments.
At the moment very few studies have been conducted to analyze the global role of Japan from
a neo-Gramscian perspective. In a neo-Gramscian sense Japan does not mean a nation-state or
a national society. To speak of Japan means that Japanese capitalism and the Japanese state
constitute one focus of class formation within the context of the global political economy.
Consequently, Japan's eventual rise should be understood as the increasing centrality of Japan
in the global political economy, i.e. the movement of Japanese capitalism to the center of
global accumulation and the international division of labor and the movement of Japanese
élites to the center of trilateralism. Thus the question is not Japan's national hegemony or development model, but Japan's participation and role in the transnational hegemony of trilateralism: How does Japan contribute to the reconstruction of the transnational trilateral hegemony of neoliberalism? How is the hegemony of neoliberalism reconstructed in the political
discourse of the economic and political élites in Japan? These question have not been answered yet. Very tentatively my own research about the Japanese debate about the trade conflict with the United States suggests that trilateralist orientations are clearly dominant in the
14
political discourse of Japan's élites and that alternative nationalist-unilateralist or Asianistregionalist orientations remain marginal.
5. Global hegemony and Japan
In trying to make sense of Japan in terms of global hegemony it is perhaps more important to
raise questions than to give quick answers. One cannot measure Japan's hegemony in an objective way unless one ignores the theoretical pluralism of IR. Unfortunately conventional IR
theories still dominate the study of Japan's global role and there are too many studies about
Japan's hegemony who apply exactly this kind of uncritical positivism. Moreover, conventional IR theories basically support the political status quo. They more or less constitute the
perspective of the present élites and do not include the perspective of political changes by democratic movements. They make us accept the world order as natural and given, as a result of
objective forces beyond democratic control. For example, neorealism stresses the inevitability
of the use of force and thus excludes the possibility of peace. It cannot accept Japan's antimilitarism as normal. Liberal institutionalists define the Western concept of world order as the end
of history. They leave no room for imagining alternative, post-modern or non-Western models
of world development.
I think that critical, and especially neo-Gramscian, approaches could help us to overcome the
shortcomings of the conventional approaches. They open up a new and exciting research
agenda. They help us to deconstruct the seemingly objective concepts of power and development and to overcome both obsolete military strategy discussions and boring debates about the
unique features of Japanese society. They reconceptualize "Japan" as an actor and put it into a
genuinely global context.
So far Japan's participation and role in the reconstruction of a neoliberal world order based on
the emerging hegemony of transnational trilateralism remains largely unexplored. It is clear
however, that this world order will be marked by structural violence, to use the terms of the
famous peace researcher Johan Galtung (Galtung 1969). This concepts makes us aware of the
fact that global wealth is distributed very unequally. In the new world order some Japanese,
Americans, Europeans and few others will become very rich while many people on the world
will not even be able to satisfy their basic human needs. Moreover, the new world order will
not be sustainable in terms of the global environment. And finally, it will not be democratic,
because it is a project which is not organized by the Japanese or other people but by the
mostly male trilateral élites. The task is to deconstruct their hegemony.
15
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