Paper short abstract:

What is the politics of cultural heritage in Japan? By focusing on recent developments in the governance of cultural heritage, involving local, national and global actors, this paper examines Japanese cultural policy-making processes as well as the complex identity politics ongoing in the country.

Paper long abstract:

On October 14th 2016, it was revealed that Japan was holding back its annual contribution to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). While "no specific reasons" was given by the Japanese authorities, this decision has prompted many observers to speculate that this was in retaliation to the inscription of China's "Documents related to the Nanjing massacre" in the UNESCO Memory of the World register in 2015. Yet, that same year, Japan was also involved in two other controversies at the UNESCO. In October, Russia protested to the listing by Japan of documents related to the internment of Japanese soldiers in Siberia after the World War II. A few months before, the Japanese state was severely criticized by South Korea of using UNESCO's famous World Heritage program to whitewash part of its troubled past with the nomination of heritage sites linked to the exploitation of forced labor during the war.

Until these past two years of controversies, Japan had constantly remained one major financial contributor of the UNESCO, and was seen as a model-nation by the organization during more than two decades. Should we consider then the recent rise of heritage conflicts as just another consequence of Japan's turn to the right? These issues, however, also highlight how Japan's national cultural heritage policy has been increasingly influenced by the development of multi-level governance - from the Japanese localities to UNESCO - resulting in many divergent interests. In recent year, among Japanese local government for example, the most powerful discourse regarding cultural heritage has been the one reshaping it as asset for the economic regeneration of declining territories.

Drawing from theoretical works on both public policy and identity politics, this paper investigates the various political processes involved in the intricate governance of cultural heritage in Japan. In particular, this research will look more closely to how Japanese cultural heritage policy reveals the evolutions of Japan's national and local identity in recent years. By doing so, this work will try to shed new lights on Japanese policy-making processes as well as on the complex identity politics ongoing in the country.

Paper short abstract:

This paper will analyze the increasing emphasis being placed upon the notion of 'integral territory' in homogenizing notions of territory mobilized within Japan's regional territorial disputes and contextualize this transformation in the shape of Japan on the map.

Paper long abstract:

Immediate post-Cold War optimism regarding a resolution of Japan's Northern Territories issue with Russia seems a lifetime ago. Rather, over the past five years, the Japanese government has made concerted efforts to attempt to homogenize the notion of territory deployed by Japan in her disputes with Korea and China, as well as with Russia. Japan has increasingly sought to make use of the notion of 'integral territory' in order to assert that what, for the majority of the Cold War, were understood as competing claims over islands should now be interpreted as disputes over vast expanses of maritime territory, the outcomes of which will literally shape Japan in the future. The successful prosecution of these disputes is presented as being absolutely essential to the maintenance of Japan as a sovereign nation in the twenty-first century.

The understanding being promoted by the Abe government is now coming to shape these territorial disputes in not only Japan, but increasingly in China and South Korea as well. The notion of 'integral territory' is being utilized in order to transform not only how Russia, South Korea, China and Taiwan are engaged with, but how these disputes are popularly interpreted, and is a product of the changing nature of national territory under the impact of UNCLOS and Abe's hawkish stance on security. It also, though, reflects the national state's adoption and encouragement of local activism. Increasingly, local commemoration of the issue has come to be reflected by the center, further homogenizing all of these territorial disputes under the notion of 'integral territory'. The concept of 'integral territory' is therefore significant in demonstrating both the inherent flexibility of the nation's notions of sovereignty and territorial fixity, upon which the state grounds its authority, and the connections between the putative political center of the nation and its localities over the negotiation and definition of how the body of the nation is commemorated and celebrated in and for the present.

This paper will trace the transformation in Japan on the map and contextualize such changes within the dynamic environment provided by both domestic and regional politics.

Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the idea of change in Japan's foreign policy approach by exploring the Japanese tactics used when competing for influence with China in various geographic contexts.

Paper long abstract:

Contrary to much of the conventional wisdom about Japanese decline and disengagement, Japan has redoubled efforts to define its place in Asia, to revive its economy, and to have a stronger say in regional security. As territorial disputes, risks of nuclear proliferation and arms races, and a dearth of institutional mechanisms critical for avoiding conflict feed a potentially precarious state of regional security, I argue that Japan has moved toward an upgraded security posture and strategic diplomacy that would have been too controversial only a decade ago. It has done this while constantly keeping a close watch on regional developments and a particularly close eye on China, arguably the state that most influences Japanese foreign policy after the U.S. Concerned with foreign policy practices, in this paper I discuss the objectives of a research program focusing on repertoires-- a sum set of potential performances that, in a given spatio-temporal context, is available to an actor and is seen, deliberately or habitually, as legitimate, sensible, possible, and/or smart by the actor and/or the antagonist/audience—within the context of Japanese foreign policy. Instead of directing focus to the power resources that underlie states' actions towards each other, emphasis is shifted from capabilities to repertoires, as a 'toolkit' of potential performances. The aim here is to unpack Japanese foreign policy repertoires by exploring the instruments present in Japan's foreign policy toolkit and how those instruments are selected and used when engaging certain actors, in particular China, in various geographic contexts.