Abstract
Studies of Japan’s foreign aid policy have contended, among other things, that Japan’s aid is a response to international pressure to contribute more to international order; that Japan’s aid policy is an instrument or tool of its foreign economic policies; and that it is a function of domestic bureaucratic politics. The influence of norms1 has been mainly considered from the perspective of outside pressure on Japan to conform to or comply with international (namely Western) expectations and standards regarding official development assistance (ODA) effort and quality. Attention has focused on the gap between these standards and expectations on one hand and Japan’s aid profile and policies on the other.2
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Notes
Norms are defined here as collectively held ideas about appropriate standards of behavior. This implies a prescriptive meaning—the way one ought to behave—rather than a descriptive meaning—the way one usually behaves. Prescriptive norms in general “give rise to feelings of moral obligation to abide by and defend the norm.” Richard K. Herrmann and Vaughn P. Shannon, “Defending International Norms: The Role of Obligation, Material Interest and Perception in Decision Making,” International Organization 55, 3 (2001): 623.
For an example of the literature see Robert M. Orr, Jr., The Emergence of Japan’s Foreign Aid Power (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990);
David Arase, Buying Power: The Political Economy of Japan’s Foreign Aid (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995);
Alan Rix, Japan’s Foreign Aid Challenge: Policy Reform and Aid Leadership (London: Routledge, 1993);
David Arase, ed., Japan’s Foreign Aid: Old Continuities and New Directions (London and New York: Routledge, 2005);
and Yoshinori Murai, ed., Kensho Nippon no ODA [An Investigation of Japan’s ODA] (Tokyo: Gakuyo Shobo, 1992).
Amy Gurowitz, “Mobilizing International Norms: Domestic Actors, Immigrants, and the Japanese State,” World Politics 51 (April 1999): 413–445.
Peter Katzenstein, “Culture, Norms and Japanese Security,” Social Science Japan Journal 7 (August 1996): 9–11.
David Williams, Japan: Beyond the End of History (London: Routledge, 1994), 8.
This aspect of the origins of Japan’s aid program was noted in the initial studies of Japan’s economic cooperation. John White, Japanese Aid (London, Overseas Development Institute, 1964).
This was reflected in the White Papers brought out by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of International Trade and Industry in the 1950s and 1960s. See Juichi Inada, “Japan’s Aid Diplomacy: Economic, Political or Strategic?” in The International Relations of Japan, edited by Kathleen Newland (London: Millennium Publishing Group/MacMillan, 1990), 100–120.
Susan J. Pharr, “Japanese Aid in the New World Order,” in Japan: A New Kind of Superpower? edited by Craig C. Garby and Mary Brown Bullock (Washington, DC: The Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1994), 159–180.
Statistics from Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Tokyo cited in Sandra Tarte, Japan’s Aid Diplomacy and the Pacific Islands (Canberra and Suva: National Centre for Development Studies and Institute for Pacific Studies, 1998).
For a discussion of the origins of the EEZ concept, see United Nations, The Law of the Sea: Exclusive Economic Zone—Legislative History of Articles 56, 58 and 59 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (New York: Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, United Nations, 1992).
Tsuneo Akaha, Japan in Global Ocean Politics (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985), 76. According to one estimate, in 1977, about 48 per cent of Japan’s catch of tuna came from areas that would be enclosed by the EEZs of 54 countries.
Yoshiaki Matsuda, “Postwar Development and Expansion of Japan’s Tuna Fishery,” in Tuna Issues and Perspectives in the Pacific Islands Region, edited by David J. Doulman (Honolulu: East-West Center, 1987), 71–91.
Tsusho-sangyosho (MITI), Keizai Kyoryoku no genjo to Mondaiten [The Present Situation and Problems and Economic Cooperation] (Tokyo: Tsusho Sangyo Chosakai, 1995).
These instruments are the 1995 Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 Relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks; and the Convention on the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, adopted in 2000. See Sandra Tarte, “A Duty to Cooperate: Building a Regional Regime for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific,” Ocean Yearbook (Chicago: The University of Chicago, 2002), 261–299.
For a history of whaling debates, see Emily A. Gardner, “Swimming Through a Sea of Sovereign States: A Look at the Whale’s Dilemma,” Ocean Yearbook (Chicago: The University of Chicago, 1996), 61–81.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan’s Official Development Assistance 1984 Annual Report (Tokyo: Association for the Promotion of International Development, 1984), 2. This was dubbed “strategic aid” by foreign commentators.
See Dennis Yasutomo, The Manner of Giving: Strategic Aid and Japan’s Foreign Policy (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1986).
The Nakasone position (which presaged debates in the 1990s about Japan’s international role) was for a more equal partnership with the United States. Takashi Inoguchi, “Nakasone and his Diplomatic Legacy,” Japan Quarterly 34, 4 (1987): 363–370.
For later debates, see Michael Jonathan Green, Japan’s Reluctant Realism: Foreign Policy Challenges in an era of Uncertain Power (New York: Palgrave, 2001).
For example, in 1987 the U.S. Senate passed a resolution calling on Japan to raise the ratio of ODA to GNP to 3 percent by 1992. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan’s Official Development Assistance 1988 Annual Report (Tokyo: Association for the Promotion of International Development, 1988).
See for example Margee Ensign, Doing Good or Doing Well? Japan’s Foreign Aid Program (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992).
This was reflected in the OECD/DAC, Shaping the 21st Century: The Role of Development Cooperation, Paris: OECD, 1996; and in the Millennium Development Goals endorsed at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000.
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© 2008 Yoichiro Sato and Keiko Hirata
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Tarte, S. (2008). Norms and Japan’s Foreign Aid Policy in the South Pacific. In: Sato, Y., Hirata, K. (eds) Norms, Interests, and Power in Japanese Foreign Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230615809_7
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