Florida International University FIU Digital Commons FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School 3-25-2015 Identity, Ideology, and Cinema: Making Sense of Japan's Foreign and Security Policies in the 1950s and 2000s Yukari Ito Florida International University, [email protected] DOI: 10.25148/etd.FI15032159 Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd Part of the International Relations Commons Recommended Citation Ito, Yukari, "Identity, Ideology, and Cinema: Making Sense of Japan's Foreign and Security Policies in the 1950s and 2000s" (2015). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1835. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/1835 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the University Graduate School at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Miami, Florida IDENTITY, IDEOLOGY, AND CINEMA: MAKING SENSE OF JAPAN’S FOREIGN AND SECURITY POLICIES IN THE 1950s AND 2000s A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS by Yukari Ito 2015 To: Dean Michael R. Heithaus College of Arts and Sciences This dissertation, written by Yukari Ito, and entitled Identity, Ideology, and Cinema: Making Sense of Japan’s Foreign and Security Policies in the 1950s and 2000s, having been approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment. We have read this dissertation and recommend that it be approved. _______________________________________ Thomas Breslin _______________________________________ Harry Gould _______________________________________ Steven Heine _______________________________________ Paul Kowert _______________________________________ John Clark, Major Professor Date of Defense: March 25, 2015 The dissertation of Yukari Ito is approved. _______________________________________ Dean Michael R. Heithaus College of Arts and Sciences _______________________________________ Dean Lakshmi N. Reddi University Graduate School Florida International University, 2015 ii © Copyright 2015 by Yukari Ito All rights reserved. iii DEDICATION To my mother Shizuko and father Tsuneo. For their love, patience, and support. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my former committee chair and member of my committee, Dr. Paul Kowert. I have benefitted greatly from his extremely intelligent and helpful suggestions. Dr. Kowert has helped me to develop my project since the beginning, and I cannot thank him enough for his tremendous kindness and support throughout the process of completing my dissertation. My heartfelt appreciation goes to my committee chair, Dr. John Clark. I cannot thank him enough for his tremendously generous support to finalize my project. Without his extremely helpful guidance and continuous encouragement, the completion of this dissertation would not have been possible. I also would like to thank my committee members, Dr. Harry Gould, Dr. Thomas Breslin, and Dr. Steven Heine. I am extremely thankful to Dr. Gould who is my committee member and graduate director. He has continuously given me kind encouragement and support and I would not have been able to continue my project without his help. I also could not thank Dr. Breslin and Dr. Heine enough for their generous and patient support. Dr. Breslin and Dr. Heine have both given me very insightful suggestions and comments that I have greatly benefitted from. I am thankful to my family for everything they have given to me. Also, my special thanks go to my husband, Adam Weiner, who has patiently supported me throughout this journey. v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION IDENTITY, IDEOLOGY, AND CINEMA: MAKING SENSE OF JAPAN’S FOREIGN AND SECURITY POLICIES IN THE 1950s AND 2000s by Yukari Ito Florida International University, 2015 Miami, Florida Professor John Clark, Major Professor Japan is an important ally of the United States–the world’s third biggest economy, and one of the regional great powers in Asia. Making sense of Japan’s foreign and security policies is crucial for the future of peace and stability in Northeast Asia, where the possible sources of conflict such as territorial disputes or the disputes over Japan’s war legacy issues are observed. This dissertation explored Japan’s foreign and security policies based on Japan’s identities and unconscious ideologies. It employed an analysis of selected Japanese films from the late 1940s to the late 1950s, as well as from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s. The analysis demonstrated that Japan’s foreign and security policies could be understood in terms of a broader social narrative that was visible in Japanese popular cultural products, including films and literatures. Narratives of Japanese families from the patriarch’s point of view, for example, had constantly shaped Japan’s foreign and security policies. As a result, the world was ordered hierarchically in the eyes of the Japan Self. In the 1950s, Japan tenaciously constructed close but asymmetrical security relations with vi the U.S. in which Japan willingly subjugated itself to the U.S. In the 2000s, Japan again constructed close relations with the U.S. by doing its best to support American responses to the 9/11 terrorist attacks by mobilizing Japan’s SDFs in the way Japan had never done in the past. The concepts of identity and unconscious ideology are helpful in understanding how Japan’s own understanding of self, of others, and of the world have shaped its own behaviors. These concepts also enable Japan to reevaluate its own behaviors reflexively, which departs from existing alternative approaches. This study provided a critical analytical explanation of the dynamics at work in Japan’s sense of identity, particularly with regard to its foreign and security policies. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO IDENTITY, IDEOLOGY, AND CINEMA ............1 CHAPTER 2: INDEPENDENCE, DEMOCRACY, AND MORALITY .........................19 CHAPTER 3: RESTORING THE PATRIARCHAL ORDER AT HOME AND ABROAD ...........................................................................................................................54 CHAPTER 4: THE PROUD AND SELF-CONFIDENT JAPANESE MAN ...................87 CHAPTER 5: RESTORING THE PROUD AND SELF-CONFIDENT JAPAN ...........109 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION ........................................................................................137 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................153 VITA ................................................................................................................................160 viii ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade GATT Information-Gathering Satellites IGS International Bank for Reconstruction and Development IBRD International Monetary Fund IMF International Relations IR Japan’s Coastal Guard JCG Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization KEDO Liberal Democratic Party LDP Maritime Self Defense Force MSDF Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan MOFA Mutual Security Assistance Act MSA Peacekeeping Force PKF People’s Republic of China PRC Recreation and Amusement Association RAA Republic of Korea ROK San-Francisco Peace Treaty SFPT Self-Defense Forces SDF United Nations UN United Nations Security Council UNSC Union of Soviet Socialist Republic USSR ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO IDENTITY, IDEOLOGY, AND CINEMA Introduction Japan is not only an important ally of the U.S. but also is the world’s third biggest economy, and one of the regional great powers in Asia. Making sense of Japan’s foreign and security policies is crucial for the future of peace and stability in Northeast Asia, where the possible sources of conflict, such as territorial disputes or the disputes over Japan’s war legacy issues, are recognized. China’s increased presence along with its increased economic and military power, as well as North Korea’s nuclear weapons issues, are significant security concerns in the region. Accordingly, cooperation among the countries concerned, including Japan, is needed. Japan’s policy choices to continue enhancing the mobility and capabilities of its Self-Defense Forces (SDF) since the 1990s have been puzzling, considering Japan usually claimed to be a benign, peace-loving country. The same goes for Japan’s unwillingness to continue working on war legacy issues, which eroded its security, as well as political and economic relations with its Asian neighbors. Japan’s behaviors since the end of the Cold War have renewed interest in exploring theoretical approaches to better understand Japan in the field of International Relations (IR). Yet, the puzzles of Japan’s foreign and security policies cannot be meaningfully explained by neorealism and neoliberalism, the dominant theoretical approaches in IR that conceptualize the state as a narrowly-defined rational actor that inevitably engages in the struggle for power under anarchy. These approaches have 1 typically found Japan to be an empirical anomaly that is not fully rational. Other analyses based on Japan’s domestic structures, history, and/or cultures, on the other hand, offer a rich and deep understanding of Japan, but are primarily descriptive. This dissertation endeavors to explain Japan’s foreign and security policies from the perspective