Invisibility by Design: Women and Labor in Japan's Digital Economy by Gabriella Lukács (review)

Abstract

the general assumption of a reactive Japan only gradually adopting an active diplomacy and policy approach to regional strategic and security issues even as security challenges increased from the second half of the 1990s. Midford argues that RSM also helped Japan achieve secondary goals. One was to “develop new security utilities not adequately provided by the US-Japan alliance . . . especially in nontraditional security areas such as counterpiracy, counterterrorism, and Humanitarian and Disaster Relief” (p. 4). This is correct, and I found Midford’s framing of these activities helpful. I would have appreciated greater discussion of the strategic significance for Japan, however. Furthermore, Midford identifies the East Asia Maritime Forum under the Democratic Party of Japan as another RSM mechanism and ascribes it importance in the final chapter (p. 163), but discussion of its practical achievements is missing. Midford states that another secondary goal for Tokyo was “to ameliorate new concerns about US abandonment that emerged after the Cold War, as well as its longerterm fear of entrapment by its superpower ally” (p. 4). He argues that it did so by enhancing incentives for engagement, mitigating American “unilateralist tendencies” (p. 22), and providing an avenue for reducing conflict in the face of allied abandonment. The book provides insufficient evidence for RSM having this effect, however, and does not convincingly demonstrate that Tokyo found self-assurance through RSM as opposed to other strategic regional initiatives pursued over the preceding three decades. Nevertheless, in Overcoming Isolationism, Midford provides a valuable service in situating RSM as a crucial vehicle for initiating and facilitating Japan’s engagement with the wider region over this period. Most Japan experts recognize that Tokyo has been a more proactive regional security actor in the new millennium, but Midford essentially argues that Japan began enhancing its ability to drive security cooperation and shape regional outcomes prior to the new millennium through RSM.