Are We about to See a “New” Japan? A Constructivist Analysis of the Japan’s Foreign Policy towards North Korea under Koizumi.

By using the Koizumi’s administration foreign policy towards North Korea as a case study, this paper argues that a constructivism framework can bring a new perspective to the Japanese questions of security by linking them to the identity construction and its reproduction process. Exploring Japan’s relationship with North Korea in such a perspective challenges the dominant representation of Japanese identity. In the first part of my paper, I deal with the dominant representation of Japanese identity by defining the terms of this dynamic concept. I then focus on the recent structural changes such as the “North Korean threat” and the redefinition of the American security alliance, which take took place under the Koizumi administration.In the second part of my paper, I approach the recent right-wing turning point in Japan’s political spectrum as a redefinition of national security in relation to the balancing process of identity construction.Finally, I conclude by exploring a few definitions of “foreign policy” such as the one proposed by David Campbell which represents it as an exclusion process to bring under control parts of population who disagree or might be a threat to the dominant representation of national identity. This part will end our survey about the looping interactions established between identity construction and security policy, by examining how the latter can further influence the dynamic process of identity reproduction through domestic policies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]