Security Politics in Japan: Legislation for a New Security Environment

by Hosoya Yuichi, Tara Cannon (Translator)

How can peace be realized in the modern world? And how can Japan ensure its own security? Despite the intense debates over Japan’s recent security-related legislation, such vital issues as these were never explored. To give proper consideration to these thorny questions, it is indispensable to have both a knowledge of history indicating the circumstances in which wars occur and a real recognition of the security environment of the twenty-first century. This work explores hotly debated security-related matters from a standard viewpoint on international politics and diplomatic history. It also advocates in a bold yet level-headed manner the form Japan’s security should take and the path Japan should follow to make that a reality.

208 pages, Hardcover

Published March 1, 2019

About the author

Hosoya Yuichi is professor of international politics at Keio University, Tokyo. He is also Senior Researcher at Nakasone Yasuhiro Peace Institute (NPI), Senior Fellow at the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research (TKFD), and also Adjunct Fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA). Professor Hosoya was a member of the Advisory Board at Japan’s National Security Council (NSC) (2014–2016), Prime Minister’s Advisory Panel on Reconstruction of the Legal Basis for Security (2013–14), and Prime Minister’s Advisory Panel on National Security and Defense Capabilities (2013). He studied international politics at Rikkyo (BA), Birmingham (MIS), and Keio (Ph.D.). He was a visiting professor and Japan Chair (2009–2010) at Sciences-Po in Paris (Institut d’Études Politiques) and a visiting fellow (Fulbright Fellow, 2008–2009) at Princeton University. His research interests include postwar international history, British diplomatic history, Japanese foreign and security policy, and contemporary East Asian international politics. He contributed a book chapter to Yul Sohn and T.J. Pempel (eds.), Japan and Asia’s Contested Order: The Interplay of Security, Economics, and Identity (Palgrave, 2018); Gilbert Rozman (ed.), Asia’s Alliance Triangle: US-Japan-South Korea Relations at a Tumultuous Time (Palgrave, 2015); Gilbert Rozman (ed.), East Asian National Identities: Common Roots and Chinese Exceptionalism (Stanford University Press, 2012), among others.