Japan and the dangers of multipolarisation

Abstract

How does Japan understand its place in the international order? And how do its policymakers then respond to challenges presented by that order to the country’s national interests? Japan has an established discourse on international order ( kokusai chitsujo ), as well as a literature which focuses on questions of multipolarisation ( takyokuka ). This encompasses both scholarly research in International Relations (IR) and more policy-oriented analysis. 1 An important characteristic of the Japanese understandings of order and polarity, therefore, is the particular manner in which crossover between the scholarly and practitioner realms occurs and how this, in turn, shapes the interplay between the explanatory and normative dimensions of Japan’s approach to international order.