Japan’s evolving threat perception: data from diet deliberations 1946–2017

Abstract

Scholars have recently commented on Japan’s increasing threat perception, either in the context of an ‘increasingly complex security environment’, or in the context of its use by Japanese elites to advance their political goals. Yet, while references to Japan’s threat perception are ubiquitous, conceptual clarity and comprehensive empirical evidence are far less so. This article seeks to address these gaps by conducting a longitudinal study of threat perception in postwar Japan. Data are driven from content analysis of debates in Japan’s national parliament over a period of seven decades (1946–2017). The evolution of Japan’s threat perception is analyzed, and a revisionist account of Japan’s threat perception is put forward. Thus, this study serves both as a metric of threat perception in postwar Japan and as a model for the study of threat perception in international relations.