Localizing international relations
The intellectual and institutional formation of IR in Japan
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6430675 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mari Nakamura (0000-0003-0850-3801, Tunghai University Department of Japanese Language and Culture, , No. 1727, Sec. 4, Taiwan Boulevard, Xitun District , Taichung City, 407224, Taiwan R.O.C, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Relations of the Asia-Pacific (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1470-482X • E-ISSN: 1470-4838 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/irap/lcaf009 |
| OpenAlex | W4416100452 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 31 |
This study examines the intellectual and institutional development of International Relations (IR) in Japan from the early 20th century to the present, framing it as a historically embedded and politically contingent knowledge formation. Challenging diffusionist accounts that portray IR as a Western export, it shows how Japanese IR emerged through the convergence of international law, diplomatic history, political science, area studies, and colonial policy studies shaped by imperial expansion, postwar pacifism, and Cold War geopolitics. The study identifies three enduring features: early multidisciplinary, a pragmatic and policy-oriented ethos, and the continued influence of prewar knowledge systems on postwar theoretical pluralism. Situating Japan within broader global and post-Western IR debates, it highlights Japan’s hybrid intellectual trajectory and argues that Japanese IR contributes to pluralizing the discipline. Far from derivative, it offers a generative site for rethinking disciplinary boundaries, regional hierarchies, and alternative epistemologies in IR
The Kyoto School and International Relations
Modern Japanese Political Thought and International Relations
Decentering International Relations
International Relations Scholarship Around the World
The Making of Global International Relations
IR as inter-cosmological relations
State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan
The Im/Possibility of Building Indigenous Theories in a Hegemonic Discipline
Nationalism, Political Realism and Democracy in Japan
Civilization and Empire
Beyond the Western Liberal Order
Rethinking Japan in mainstream international relations
International Relations studies and theories in Japan
Are there any theories of international relations in Japan
The United States and the Discipline of International Relations
International Relations
An East Asian approach to temporality, subjectivity and ethics
Materializing the ‘non-Western’
Between East and West
The ‘standard of civilization’ in international law
Rethinking Emancipation in a Critical IR
Provincialising International Relations through a reading of dharma
The births of International Studies in China
Introduction to the Special Issue
The emergence and evolution of International Relations studies in postcolonial South Korea
Japan's National Security
The Sociology of a Not So International Discipline
Political Science in Japan
Colonial policy studies in Japan
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |