5Security Culture and the Post-Cold War Japanese Security Policy

摘要

After the end of the Cold War, Japan became very active in its security policy. How can we explain this phenomenon? This essay argues that (neo-) realist settings (the end of the Cold War, the Taepodong missile launch) have triggered changes in Japanese domestic security culture, which subsequently affected Japanese security policy. In spite of rationalist theorists' criticism of the constructivist approach for not being able to clarify independent and dependent variables, this essay attempts to elucidate the relationship between security culture and policies thereof. By utilizing "cultural process-tracing," this paper investigates how cultural elements become linked and internalized into policymaker-level and illustrates the causal relationship between these two.