Linus Hagström
Biographic Data
| ID | 743935 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Linus Hagström |
| GIVEN NAMES | Linus |
| FAMILY NAME | Hagström |
| SIGNATURE | HAGSTRÖM L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Swedish Defence University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7495-055X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 46 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 343 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 44 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
The narrative construction of political competence: Challenging the expert/amateur binary in Japan’s foreign and security policy
Whether expertise or amateurism is attributed to political leaders can play a pivotal role in their success. This article analyzes the dissemination of such reputations, focusing on the perceived foreign and security policy competence of Japanese leaders between 2009 and 2020. This period saw brief tenures as prime minister for Hatoyama Yukio and Kan Naoto, both of whom were criticized for their incompetence in managing Japan’s foreign relations …
Unravelling military aggression: Ontological insecurity, great power narcissism, and Japan’s international relations, 1868–1971
This article examines the extent to which or how self-identified great powers resort to military aggression following events that challenge their sense of greatness. It problematises the prevalent notion that great powers and events exist and have effects independently of the narratives that constitute them. The article does this by engaging with Ontological Security Studies, Great Power Narcissism, and the psychology of vulnerable and grandiose …
Changing identity to remain oneself: Ontological security and the Swedish decision on joining Nato
The insecurity of doing research and the ‘so what question’ in political science: How to develop more compelling research problems by facing anxiety
Research problems are crucial in the sense that they provide new research with purpose and justification. So why, despite the abundance of guidance available from an extensive methods literature, do graduate students often struggle to develop compelling research problems? This article argues that the process of developing research problems epitomises the insecurity of doing research. We focus in particular on the anxiety that graduate students of…
Everyday Perspectives on Security and Insecurity in Japan: A Survey of Three Women’s Organizations
The existing research on Japanese security focuses mainly on the nation state and conceives of male elites as the key bearers of relevant knowledge about the phenomenon. This article problematizes these biases by zeroing in on women’s everyday-oriented perspectives, which fall outside the scope of security politics as traditionally conceived. More specifically, it analyzes the rich material provided by a survey of the members of three major Japan…
Resentment, status dissatisfaction, and the emotional underpinnings of Japanese security policy
What explains Japan’s security policy change in recent decades? Heeding the ‘emotional turn’ in International Relations, this article applies a resentment-based framework, which defines resentment as a long-lasting form of anger and the product of status dissatisfaction. Leveraging interviews with 18 conservative Japanese lawmakers and senior officials, the article discusses the role, function, and prevalence of resentment in the remaking of Japa…
Japan, the Ambiguous, and My Fragile, Complex and Evolving Self
This essay takes literature laureate Kenzaburo Oe's Nobel lecture from 1994, Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself, as a point of departure for thinking about Japan, the ambiguous and how the already fragile and complex narrator that is I has evolved ambiguously over time in relation to a similarly ambiguous and changing imagination of Japan. Based on aikido practice-the narrator's gateway to Japan-the essay ends up proposing a different understanding…
Female Nationalist Activism in Japan: Truth-Telling Through Everyday Micro-Practices
There is an emerging debate about the role and importance of women in right-wing nationalist movements. Drawing on research that highlights the need to study such women as active and complex political agents, this article examines a phenomenon that has previously received little attention—the activism of female Japanese nationalists. We approach the question of how such activism is practiced by analyzing a group interview with female nationalists…
Logics of Othering: Sweden as Other in the time of Covid-19
‘Othering’ – the view or treatment of another person or group as intrinsically different from and alien to oneself – is a central concept in the International Relations literature on identity construction. It is often portrayed as a fairly singular and predominantly negative form of self/Other differentiation. During the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweden at first glance emerged as exactly such a negative Other. This article problemati…
Aikido and world politics: A Practice Theory for Transcending the Security Dilemma
In the final analysis, is the security dilemma inescapable? Or can the protagonists in world politics learn to live with never-ending insecurities and the risk of attack without producing precisely the outcomes that they wish to avoid? This article explores this fundamental problem for International Relations theory by performing a thought experiment, in which it applies lessons from aikido to world politics. A form of Japanese budo, or martial a…
Ontological (In)Security and Neoliberal Governmentality: Explaining Australia's China Emergency
One of the mysteries in contemporary world politics is why in recent years Australia has been leading the world in its hawkish approach to China, its largest trading partner. More than most of its allies, the Australian government seems to regard the China emergency — fuelled by threat perceptions ranging from foreign influence operations to economic coercion — as more pressing than, say, climate change. This article extends and supplants existin…
The limitations of strategic narratives: The Sino-American struggle over the meaning of Covid-19
Recent research has explored how the Sino-American narrative struggle around COVID-19 might affect power shift dynamics and world order. An underlying assumption is that states craft strategic narratives in attempts to gain international support for their understandings of reality. This article evaluates such claims taking a mixed-methods approach. It analyzes American and Chinese strategic narratives about the pandemic, and their global diffusio…
Great Power Narcissism and Ontological (In)Security: The Narrative Mediation of Greatness and Weakness in International Politics
Why do self-representations of weakness pervade public discourse in self-identified great powers? Moreover, why do they intersect with self-representations of greatness? Do such narrative instability, inconsistency, and incoherence simply indicate that great powers are ontologically insecure? This article advances a theoretical explanation that is both embedded in and contributes to scholarship that theorizes ontological (in)security from a Lacan…
Traversing the soft/hard power binary: The case of the Sino-Japanese territorial dispute
Soft power and hard power are conceptualised in International Relations as empirically and normatively dichotomous, and practically opposite – one intangible, attractive, and legitimate, the other tangible, coercive, and less legitimate. This article critiques this binary conceptualisation, arguing that it is discursively constructed with and for the construction of Self and Other. It further demonstrates that practices commonly labelled and unde…
Disciplinary power: Text and body in the Swedish Nato debate
This article draws on identity construction, emotions and a notion of productive power to address the question of why Swedish policymakers and public opinion are becoming increasingly supportive of NATO membership. It contributes theoretically by arguing that such textual phenomena intertwine with ‘disciplinary power’, which operates on the bodies of the subjects of power, exposing them to verbal and physical sanctions, a host of complex feelings…
China's “Politics of Harmony” and the Quest for Soft Power in International Politics
This article engages with China's “politics of harmony” to investigate the dangers and possibilities of soft power as a concept and practice. Chinese sources claim that China will be able to exercise soft power due to its tradition of thinking about harmony. Indeed, the concept of harmony looms large in Chinese soft power campaigns, which differentiate China's own harmonious soft power from the allegedly disharmonious hard power of other great po…
Becoming a Traitor
In this autobiographical essay, I narrate my experience of being positioned in public as naive in my profession and a traitor to my country after publishing an op-ed in Sweden’s largest daily newspaper, in which I argued that Sweden should not join NATO — the transatlantic military alliance. Some of the negative reactions came from within my own workplace. I had just been promoted to Professor at the Swedish Defence University and colleagues thou…
Narrative power: How storytelling shapes East Asian international politics
We are living at a time when people appear to have become more aware of the power of narratives in international politics. Understanding how narratives exercise power is therefore more pertinent than ever. This special issue develops the concept of narrative power for international relations research by focusing on East Asia-the region that has been at the centre of debates about international power shifts since the 1990s. This introduction seeks…
Long live pacifism! Narrative power and Japan’s pacifist model
International relations research acknowledges that states can have different security policies but neglects the fact that ‘models’ may exist in the security policy realm. This article suggests that it is useful to think about models, which it argues can become examples for emulation or be undermined through narrative power. It illustrates the argument by analysing Japan’s pacifism—an alternative approach to security policy which failed to become …
Japan's Pacifism Is Dead
Japan can now do more or less everything that other, more ‘normal’ countries do in the security field
What is the Point? Teaching Graduate Students how to Construct Political Science Research Puzzles
One of the key challenges graduate students face is how to come up with a good rationale for their theses. Unfortunately, the methods literature in and beyond political science does not provide much advice on this important issue. While focusing on how to conduct research, this literature has largely neglected the question of why a study should be undertaken. The limited discussions that can be found suggest that new research is justified if it (…
War is peace: The rearticulation of ‘peace’ in Japan’s China discourse
This article demonstrates that a national identity defined by a normative commitment to peace is not necessarily an antidote to remilitarisation and war. More specifically, the article takes issue with the debate about the trajectory of Japan’s security and defence policy. One strand of the debate holds that Japan is normatively committed to peace while the other claims that Japan is in the process of remilitarising. This article argues that the …
Sanctions Reconsidered: The Path Forward with North Korea
There have been regular predictions of North Korea’s imminent collapse. Yet, by adapting to changing circumstances, and finding new supply lines and revenue streams, the state has managed to bypass an increasingly strict sanctions regime aimed at rolling back its nuclear program. This article details the economic flows that continue to keep North Korea alive, against all odds, but argued that these areas are difficult to target as even “smart san…
Identity Change and Foreign Policy: Japan and its 'Others'
1. Japan and identity change: why it matters in International Relations Linus Hagstrom and Karl Gustafsson 2. The persistence of reified Asia as reality in Japanese foreign policy narratives Taku Tamaki 3. Shimane Prefecture, Tokyo and the territorial dispute over Dokdo/Takeshima: regional and national identities in Japan Alexander Bukh 4. The North Korean abduction issue: emotions, securitisation and the reconstruction of Japanese identity from …
The Sino-Japanese battle for soft power: Pitfalls and promises
Beijing and Tokyo are currently involved in a zero-sum battle for soft power. Both governments are actively trying to shape how third party actors understand contested matters in their bilateral relationship. The dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands is the most obvious flashpoint in this ongoing struggle for hearts and minds. A soft power battle might seem like an innocent endeavour, but by entrenching enmity and legitimizing armed conflict, i…
Japan and identity change: Why it matters in International Relations
Two approaches to identity have been employed to explore issues in Japan's international relations. One views identity as constituted by domestic norms and culture, and as constitutive of interests, which in turn cause behaviour. Proponents view Japan's 'pacifist' and 'antimilitarist' identity as inherently stable and likely to change only as a result of material factors. In the other approach, 'Japan' emerges and changes through processes of dif…
Narrative power: How storytelling shapes East Asian international politics
We are living at a time when people appear to have become more aware of the power of narratives in international politics. Understanding how narratives exercise power is therefore more pertinent than ever. This special issue develops the concept of narrative power for international relations research by focusing on East Asia-the region that has been at the centre of debates about international power shifts since the 1990s. This introduction seeks…
Great Power Narcissism and Ontological (In)Security: The Narrative Mediation of Greatness and Weakness in International Politics
Why do self-representations of weakness pervade public discourse in self-identified great powers? Moreover, why do they intersect with self-representations of greatness? Do such narrative instability, inconsistency, and incoherence simply indicate that great powers are ontologically insecure? This article advances a theoretical explanation that is both embedded in and contributes to scholarship that theorizes ontological (in)security from a Lacan…
The limitations of strategic narratives: The Sino-American struggle over the meaning of Covid-19
Recent research has explored how the Sino-American narrative struggle around COVID-19 might affect power shift dynamics and world order. An underlying assumption is that states craft strategic narratives in attempts to gain international support for their understandings of reality. This article evaluates such claims taking a mixed-methods approach. It analyzes American and Chinese strategic narratives about the pandemic, and their global diffusio…
Power Shift' in East Asia? A Critical Reappraisal of Narratives on the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Incident in 2010
Journal Article 'Power Shift' in East Asia? A Critical Reappraisal of Narratives on the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Incident in 2010 Get access Linus Hagström Linus Hagström * * Corresponding author: Email: [email protected]. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Chinese Journal of International Politics, Volume 5, Issue 3, Autumn 2012, Pages 267–297, https://doi.org/10.1093/cjip/pos011 Published: 25 August 2012
The North Korean abduction issue: Emotions, securitisation and the reconstruction of Japanese identity from ‘aggressor’ to ‘victim’ and from ‘pacifist’ to ‘normal’
After Kim Jong-il's confession in 2002 that North Korean agents had abducted thirteen Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, North Korea has become the most detested country in Japan, and the normalisation of bilateral relations has been put on the back burner. The abduction issue has taken precedence in Japan even over North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. It has also grossly overshadowed the atrocities for whi…
The ‘abnormal’ state: Identity, norm/exception and Japan
The term ‘abnormal’ has frequently been used to describe post-war Japan. Together with the idea that the country will, or should have to, ‘normalise’ its foreign and security policy, it has been reproduced in both academia and Japanese society. Why is Japan branded as ‘abnormal’, and from where does the desire to ‘normalise’ it come? Drawing on a relational concept of identity, and the distinction between norm and exception, this article argues t…
Disciplinary power: Text and body in the Swedish Nato debate
This article draws on identity construction, emotions and a notion of productive power to address the question of why Swedish policymakers and public opinion are becoming increasingly supportive of NATO membership. It contributes theoretically by arguing that such textual phenomena intertwine with ‘disciplinary power’, which operates on the bodies of the subjects of power, exposing them to verbal and physical sanctions, a host of complex feelings…
China's “Politics of Harmony” and the Quest for Soft Power in International Politics
This article engages with China's “politics of harmony” to investigate the dangers and possibilities of soft power as a concept and practice. Chinese sources claim that China will be able to exercise soft power due to its tradition of thinking about harmony. Indeed, the concept of harmony looms large in Chinese soft power campaigns, which differentiate China's own harmonious soft power from the allegedly disharmonious hard power of other great po…
Quiet power: Japan's China policy in regard to the Pinnacle Islands
How should Japan's foreign policy or role in the world be characterized? This question has been under discussion for some four decades, and answers have often been put in terms of 'power'. By using a new framework for analyzing foreign policy – what is called 'relational power analysis' – this article aims to offer a conceptually more coherent picture of Japan's foreign policy or role in the world in terms of power. It does so by assessing a 'lit…
Long live pacifism! Narrative power and Japan’s pacifist model
International relations research acknowledges that states can have different security policies but neglects the fact that ‘models’ may exist in the security policy realm. This article suggests that it is useful to think about models, which it argues can become examples for emulation or be undermined through narrative power. It illustrates the argument by analysing Japan’s pacifism—an alternative approach to security policy which failed to become …
Rethinking Japan's China Policy: Japan as an Accommodator in the Rise of China, 1978–2011
For the last four decades Sino-Japanese relations have been characterized by steadily growing economic and sociocultural interactions. Yet, greater interdependence has developed in tandem with bilateral tensions. Many analysts have attempted to explain the latter as a result of Japan trying to balance or contain the burgeoning growth of Chinese capabilities. In this article, we question and qualify this widespread understanding of Japan's respons…
The Democratic Party of Japan's security policy and Japanese politics of constitutional revision: A cloud over Article 9
A Referendum Law took effect in Japan in May 2010. Since a referendum is a prerequisite to any change to the Japanese ‘Peace Constitution’, this is an event with potentially far-reaching consequences. By gauging the Democratic Party of Japan's views on the issue of revision of the constitution—particularly revision of the famous Article 9, with remains a foundation of Japanese security policy—and by extrapolating on the findings, this article aim…
Sino-Japanese Relations: The Ice That Won't Melt
The 2008 commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the peace and friendship treaty between Japan and the People's Republic of China coincided with much optimism about the healthy development and prosperous future of this bilateral relationship. Observers around the globe are welcoming the end to the frosty relations that existed under former Japanese Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi (2001-06), while news articles and reports tend to reproduce the…
The Sino-Japanese battle for soft power: Pitfalls and promises
Beijing and Tokyo are currently involved in a zero-sum battle for soft power. Both governments are actively trying to shape how third party actors understand contested matters in their bilateral relationship. The dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands is the most obvious flashpoint in this ongoing struggle for hearts and minds. A soft power battle might seem like an innocent endeavour, but by entrenching enmity and legitimizing armed conflict, i…
Relational Power for Foreign Policy Analysis: Issues in Japan’s China Policy
The aim of this article is to demonstrate how a relational concept of power can benefit Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA). It begins by drawing attention to the fact that Japan’s foreign policy has been portrayed rather enigmatically in terms of power, and by arguing that such an enigma stems from the fact that FPA has borrowed the concept of power of much International Relations (IR) theory, i.e. one that puts power on a par with capability. With a …
Changing identity to remain oneself: Ontological security and the Swedish decision on joining Nato
Traversing the soft/hard power binary: The case of the Sino-Japanese territorial dispute
Soft power and hard power are conceptualised in International Relations as empirically and normatively dichotomous, and practically opposite – one intangible, attractive, and legitimate, the other tangible, coercive, and less legitimate. This article critiques this binary conceptualisation, arguing that it is discursively constructed with and for the construction of Self and Other. It further demonstrates that practices commonly labelled and unde…
Becoming a Traitor
In this autobiographical essay, I narrate my experience of being positioned in public as naive in my profession and a traitor to my country after publishing an op-ed in Sweden’s largest daily newspaper, in which I argued that Sweden should not join NATO — the transatlantic military alliance. Some of the negative reactions came from within my own workplace. I had just been promoted to Professor at the Swedish Defence University and colleagues thou…
What is the Point? Teaching Graduate Students how to Construct Political Science Research Puzzles
One of the key challenges graduate students face is how to come up with a good rationale for their theses. Unfortunately, the methods literature in and beyond political science does not provide much advice on this important issue. While focusing on how to conduct research, this literature has largely neglected the question of why a study should be undertaken. The limited discussions that can be found suggest that new research is justified if it (…
Understanding Fluctuations in Sino-Japanese Relations: To Politicize or to De-politicize the China Issue in the Japanese Diet
From the late 1990s to the late 2000s, scholarly literature and media analysis shifted from representing the Sino-Japanese relationship as generally “good,” to portraying it as generally “bad,” and
Remilitarization,” Really? Assessing Change in Japanese Foreign Security Policy
This article analyzes Japanese foreign security policy and recent talk of “remilitarization.” It does so by assessing the changes that most closely parallel the analytical interests of three sets of major international relations theories: namely capability (realism), policy (liberalism), and normative context (constructivism). Japanese responses to recurring North Korean missile tests moreover provide a source for a contextually bound analysis of…
Normalizing Japan: Supporter, Nuisance, or Wielder of Power in the North Korean Nuclear Talks
This article demonstrates how Tokyo has been exercising economic power in the multilateral talks on North Korea, including over the U.S. The implication is that Japanese foreign and security policy can be regarded as "normal" already---hence forming a critique of ideas of "normalization" that are preconditioned on remilitarization
Logics of Othering: Sweden as Other in the time of Covid-19
‘Othering’ – the view or treatment of another person or group as intrinsically different from and alien to oneself – is a central concept in the International Relations literature on identity construction. It is often portrayed as a fairly singular and predominantly negative form of self/Other differentiation. During the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweden at first glance emerged as exactly such a negative Other. This article problemati…
Japan's Pacifism Is Dead
Japan can now do more or less everything that other, more ‘normal’ countries do in the security field
Quiet power: Japan's China policy in regard to the Pinnacle Islands
How should Japan's foreign policy or role in the world be characterized? This question has been under discussion for some four decades, and answers have often been put in terms of 'power'. By using a new framework for analyzing foreign policy – what is called 'relational power analysis' – this article aims to offer a conceptually more coherent picture of Japan's foreign policy or role in the world in terms of power. It does so by assessing a 'lit…
Japan's China policy: A Relational Power Analysis
Ubiquity of ‘Power’ and the Advantage of Terminological Pluralism: Japan's Foreign Policy Discourse
This article demonstrates that ubiquitous references to ‘power’ in English-language foreign policy discourse can be understood in the light of the inclination in international relations theory to place power on a par with capability. It makes two claims: that such a concept of power is ill-fitted for foreign policy analysis; and that much clarity would be gained by following the Japanese example of terminological pluralism and thus abandoning ‘po…
Relational Power for Foreign Policy Analysis: Issues in Japan’s China Policy
The aim of this article is to demonstrate how a relational concept of power can benefit Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA). It begins by drawing attention to the fact that Japan’s foreign policy has been portrayed rather enigmatically in terms of power, and by arguing that such an enigma stems from the fact that FPA has borrowed the concept of power of much International Relations (IR) theory, i.e. one that puts power on a par with capability. With a …
The Dogma of Japanese Insignificance: The Academic Discourse on North Korea Policy Coordination
apan's postwar development has been quite astonishing. The journey from military defeat to economic success only took twenty or so years to accomplish. Yet some international relations (IR) scholars have been rather surprised by the fact that Japan failed to fulfil what they prophesized namely, to develop political and military power commensurate with its great economic capability. This is why realist Kenneth Waltz has given Japan the epithet of …
Taking Japan-North Korea Relations Seriously: Rationale and Background
centrality of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) to politics in Northeast Asia has been underscored above all by the country's suspected development of nuclear weapons since the early 1990s. North Korea provides a number of issues in regards to which the other regional actors try to coordinate their policies. Yet the literature analyzing the coordination of policy towards North Korea too often neglects aspects of the ge…
North Korea Policy
Introduction: Japan, the great powers, and the coordination of North Korea policy Linus Hagstrom and Marie Soderberg 1. Japan and the recurrent nuclear crisis Tsuneo Akaha 2. The rationales behind North Korean foreign policy Han S. Park 3. Seoul's policy toward Pyongyang: Strategic culture and the negligibility of Japan Balbina Y. Hwang 4. US North Korea policy: The 'Japan factor' Yoichiro Sato 5. Chinese North Korea policy: A secondary role for …
Critiquing the Idea of Japanese Exceptionalism: Japan and the Coordination of North Korea Policy
The idea that Japan is playing an 'alternative role' in its foreign policy—that it is keeping a 'conspicuously low profile' and that its stance is in some sense 'unique'—has been a recurring theme of analysis of Japanese foreign policy. This article aims to critique this idea of Japanese exceptionalism, epitomised for instance in the 'aikido state' metaphor. By analysing Japan's role in the Six-Party Talks—arguably a suitable case for testing thi…
Remilitarization,” Really? Assessing Change in Japanese Foreign Security Policy
This article analyzes Japanese foreign security policy and recent talk of “remilitarization.” It does so by assessing the changes that most closely parallel the analytical interests of three sets of major international relations theories: namely capability (realism), policy (liberalism), and normative context (constructivism). Japanese responses to recurring North Korean missile tests moreover provide a source for a contextually bound analysis of…
Normalizing Japan: Supporter, Nuisance, or Wielder of Power in the North Korean Nuclear Talks
This article demonstrates how Tokyo has been exercising economic power in the multilateral talks on North Korea, including over the U.S. The implication is that Japanese foreign and security policy can be regarded as "normal" already---hence forming a critique of ideas of "normalization" that are preconditioned on remilitarization
Sino-Japanese Relations: The Ice That Won't Melt
The 2008 commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the peace and friendship treaty between Japan and the People's Republic of China coincided with much optimism about the healthy development and prosperous future of this bilateral relationship. Observers around the globe are welcoming the end to the frosty relations that existed under former Japanese Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi (2001-06), while news articles and reports tend to reproduce the…
The Democratic Party of Japan's security policy and Japanese politics of constitutional revision: A cloud over Article 9
A Referendum Law took effect in Japan in May 2010. Since a referendum is a prerequisite to any change to the Japanese ‘Peace Constitution’, this is an event with potentially far-reaching consequences. By gauging the Democratic Party of Japan's views on the issue of revision of the constitution—particularly revision of the famous Article 9, with remains a foundation of Japanese security policy—and by extrapolating on the findings, this article aim…
Understanding Fluctuations in Sino-Japanese Relations: To Politicize or to De-politicize the China Issue in the Japanese Diet
From the late 1990s to the late 2000s, scholarly literature and media analysis shifted from representing the Sino-Japanese relationship as generally “good,” to portraying it as generally “bad,” and
Power Shift' in East Asia? A Critical Reappraisal of Narratives on the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Incident in 2010
Journal Article 'Power Shift' in East Asia? A Critical Reappraisal of Narratives on the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Incident in 2010 Get access Linus Hagström Linus Hagström * * Corresponding author: Email: [email protected]. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Chinese Journal of International Politics, Volume 5, Issue 3, Autumn 2012, Pages 267–297, https://doi.org/10.1093/cjip/pos011 Published: 25 August 2012
Rethinking Japan's China Policy: Japan as an Accommodator in the Rise of China, 1978–2011
For the last four decades Sino-Japanese relations have been characterized by steadily growing economic and sociocultural interactions. Yet, greater interdependence has developed in tandem with bilateral tensions. Many analysts have attempted to explain the latter as a result of Japan trying to balance or contain the burgeoning growth of Chinese capabilities. In this article, we question and qualify this widespread understanding of Japan's respons…
Deconstructing Japan's Image of South Korea Identity in Foreign Policy
Journal Article Deconstructing Japan's Image of South Korea Identity in Foreign Policy Get access Taku TamakiPalgrave Macmillan, March 2010ISBN-10: 0230619312, ISBN-13: 978-0230619319, $84.00 Linus Hagström Linus Hagström E-mail: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, Volume 12, Issue 3, September 2012, Pages 518–522, https://doi.org/10.1093/irap/l…
East Asia’s Power Shift: The Flaws and Hazards of the Debate and How to Avoid Them
The widespread debate on an East Asian power shift is generally based on the crude notion that power and capability are inter-changeable. We critique this view and offer the alternative that power is the capacity of actors and discourses to produce effects— what we call relational and productive power, respectively. We also engage in a reflexive exercise by addressing the productive power of the power-shift debate itself, and emphasize the danger…
Using meta-reflection to improve learning and throughput: Redesigning assessment procedures in a political science course on power
The aim of this article is to contribute to the discussion on how examinations can be designed to enhance students’ learning and increase throughput in terms of the number of students who sit, and pass, the course examination. The context of the study is a basic level political science course on power analysis, which initially suffered from low throughput. The contribution of the article is to demonstrate that no other changes to the course than …
The North Korean abduction issue: Emotions, securitisation and the reconstruction of Japanese identity from ‘aggressor’ to ‘victim’ and from ‘pacifist’ to ‘normal’
After Kim Jong-il's confession in 2002 that North Korean agents had abducted thirteen Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, North Korea has become the most detested country in Japan, and the normalisation of bilateral relations has been put on the back burner. The abduction issue has taken precedence in Japan even over North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. It has also grossly overshadowed the atrocities for whi…
Japan and identity change: Why it matters in International Relations
Two approaches to identity have been employed to explore issues in Japan's international relations. One views identity as constituted by domestic norms and culture, and as constitutive of interests, which in turn cause behaviour. Proponents view Japan's 'pacifist' and 'antimilitarist' identity as inherently stable and likely to change only as a result of material factors. In the other approach, 'Japan' emerges and changes through processes of dif…
Identity Change and Foreign Policy: Japan and its 'Others'
1. Japan and identity change: why it matters in International Relations Linus Hagstrom and Karl Gustafsson 2. The persistence of reified Asia as reality in Japanese foreign policy narratives Taku Tamaki 3. Shimane Prefecture, Tokyo and the territorial dispute over Dokdo/Takeshima: regional and national identities in Japan Alexander Bukh 4. The North Korean abduction issue: emotions, securitisation and the reconstruction of Japanese identity from …
The Sino-Japanese battle for soft power: Pitfalls and promises
Beijing and Tokyo are currently involved in a zero-sum battle for soft power. Both governments are actively trying to shape how third party actors understand contested matters in their bilateral relationship. The dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands is the most obvious flashpoint in this ongoing struggle for hearts and minds. A soft power battle might seem like an innocent endeavour, but by entrenching enmity and legitimizing armed conflict, i…
The ‘abnormal’ state: Identity, norm/exception and Japan
The term ‘abnormal’ has frequently been used to describe post-war Japan. Together with the idea that the country will, or should have to, ‘normalise’ its foreign and security policy, it has been reproduced in both academia and Japanese society. Why is Japan branded as ‘abnormal’, and from where does the desire to ‘normalise’ it come? Drawing on a relational concept of identity, and the distinction between norm and exception, this article argues t…
War is peace: The rearticulation of ‘peace’ in Japan’s China discourse
This article demonstrates that a national identity defined by a normative commitment to peace is not necessarily an antidote to remilitarisation and war. More specifically, the article takes issue with the debate about the trajectory of Japan’s security and defence policy. One strand of the debate holds that Japan is normatively committed to peace while the other claims that Japan is in the process of remilitarising. This article argues that the …
Sanctions Reconsidered: The Path Forward with North Korea
There have been regular predictions of North Korea’s imminent collapse. Yet, by adapting to changing circumstances, and finding new supply lines and revenue streams, the state has managed to bypass an increasingly strict sanctions regime aimed at rolling back its nuclear program. This article details the economic flows that continue to keep North Korea alive, against all odds, but argued that these areas are difficult to target as even “smart san…
Political science (43 works) · Law (37 works) · Sociology (34 works) · Politics (30 works) · Law (28 works) · Political economy (21 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (20 works) · Philosophy (20 works) · China (16 works) · Epistemology (15 works)