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The Identity Dilemma and the Road to the Pacific War by Daisuke Minami

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The Identity Dilemma and the Road to the Pacific War by Daisuke Minami Identity Clash: The Identity Dilemma and the Road to the Pacific War by Daisuke Minami B.A. in Political Science, May 2013, Macalester College A Dissertation submitted to The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 19, 2019 Dissertation directed by Eric Grynaviski Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that Daisuke Minami has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of April 8, 2019. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation. Identity Clash: The Identity Dilemma and the Road to the Pacific War Daisuke Minami Dissertation Research Committee: Eric Grynaviski, Associate Professor of Poiltical Science and International Affaris, Dissertation Director Mike M. Mochizuki, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Committee Member Michael N. Barnett, University Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Committee Member Charles L. Glaser, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Committee Member ii © Copyright 2019 by Daisuke Minami All rights reserved iii Acknowledgements This dissertation would have not been possible without the help of numerous people. I owe tremendous gratitude to those who have supported me. I first would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee: Eric Grynaviski, Mike Mochizuki, Michael Barnett, and Charlie Glaser. Eric Grynaviski has been crucial at every stage of my doctoral program. As a first-year faculty mentor, he helped me weather through the first two years of the coursework and develop my research agenda. In fact, this dissertation builds on on a term paper I wrote for his course as a second- year student. As a dissertation committee chair, he has been the best advisor I could ask for. He has read every draft of my dissertation chapters and gave me extensive and constructive feedback every time. I am deeply grateful for his professional and personal guidance these past six years. Mike Mochizuki has also provided tremendous intellectual and moral support throughout these years. When I was forming my dissertation committee three years ago, he said that he would still help me as a friend even if he was not part of the committee. I knew then that I was in good hands. Michael Barnett has consistently offered incisive criticism of my draft chapters. His feedback has been helpful in developing and refining many parts of the theoretical and empirical arguments in the dissertation. Charlie Glaser has added unique and valuable perspectives to my dissertation. Coming from a different theoretical tradition than mine, his comments have pushed me to see my research from different viewpoints and think through how it could speak to broader audiences. I am also grateful to many people at The George Washington University and other institutions. I first thank Daqing Yang and Bentley Allan for serving as outside examiners iv for my dissertation defense and providing insightful comments. I also thank the professors at GWU, including Marty Finnemore, Yon Lupu, Celeste Arrington, and Alex Downes, who taught me and provided feedback on my research in seminars and workshops. I am also greatful to my cohorts, including Vanes Ibric, Nik Kalyanpur, Brian Radzinski, Aparna Ravi, Kendrick Kuo, Shahryar Pasandideh, and Amoz Hor, who gave me constructive comments to improve my dissertation and moral support to maintain my sanity these past years. I also appreciate the generous research assistance from the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs, Mitsuyo Sato at the Japan Resource Center of the GWU Gelman Library, and Toyomi Asano at Waseda University. Moreover, I thank David Blaney, Andrew Latham, and Erik Larson at my alma mater, Macalester College, for encouraging me to seek a doctoral degree in the first place. Lastly, and most importantly, I thank my parents, Hatsuyo Minami and Kazumasa Minami. They have always been understanding when it comes to my educational pursuits—allowing me to participate in a high school exchange student program in the United States, sending me to Macalester for my undergraduate degree, and supporting me throughout the last six years of the doctoral work at GWU. I am truly grateful to them for all these years. v Abstract of Dissertation Identity Clash: The Identity Dilemma and the Road to the Pacific War My dissertation offers a new way to study international conflicts from identity politics perspectives. Conventional wisdom is that hostilities, arms races, and wars result from the security dilemma, a situation in which states perceive the other’s security-seeking actions as threats and take retaliatory measures. I challenge this view and offer an alternative way to explain conflicts by theorizing the “identity dilemma,” a situation in which one’s action to enact its identity challenges the other’s identity. States form identities based on the roles they play in international society and feel secure about their identities by enacting those roles. The identity dilemma occurs when two states have incompatible identities and an event exposes this incompatibility and leads the states to defend their identities. Due to the incompatibility, each state views the other’s action as a challenge to its own identity and develops hostility against the other. As hostility deepens, states seek confrontational actions, possibly leading to conflicts. The identity dilemma is escalatory because it is more emotional than rational. It impedes coolheaded discussions and negotiations because passion and nationalism trump reason and pragmatism. I test these assertions by analyzing the rise of American-Japanese conflictual relationship during the 1930s, a decade that historians call the “Road to the Pacific War.” This is a crucial case not only because it is historically important but also because conventional accounts attribute the conflict to strategic factors (i.e., conflict of interests in China) and domestic factors (i.e., Japan’s anti-Western militarism). Through discourse analysis and process tracing based on primary and secondary sources, I rebut these vi conventional accounts and show that identity politics explains why the conflict arose during the 1930s and not before. Before the 1930s, the identities of the United States and Japan were compatible, and there was no identity dilemma. Many Japanese leaders were “moderate internationalists” who thought that Japan as a great power should be a responsible member of the Western community. And many Americans were “isolationists” who believed that the United States should assume its role as a “city upon a hill” and stay aloof from overseas troubles. Unconcerned about Japan’s expansion in East Asia, American isolationists welcomed Japan as a member of the West. Japanese moderates reciprocated by cooperating with the Western countries under the Washington Treaty System. In short, there was mutual recognition of each other’s identity. There was no identity dilemma, and the two countries maintained friendly relations. During the 1930s, the two countries’ identities became incompatible. The identity dilemma started and caused American-Japanese conflict. Many Japanese leaders believed that Japan must assert its role of a “leader in Asia” and supported the country’s expansion into China. This “pan-Asianist” worldview and policy challenged U.S. “liberal internationalist” worldview that the United States must assume its role as a “crusader nation” to uphold the post-WWI peace system and democratize and Christianize China. For this identity-based reason, many Americans pushed embargoes against Japan to stop its invasion of China, although the United States had no vital strategic interests in China. These embargoes in turn triggered Japan’s further expansionist measures and ultimately Pearl Harbor. vii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................... iv Abstract of Dissertation ............................................................................................... vi List of Figures ............................................................................................................... ix List of Tables .................................................................................................................. x Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: The Identity Dilemma and Interstate Enmity ................................................ 17 Chapter 2: U.S.-Japan Identity Relations across the Pacific, 1853-1930 ......................... 65 Chapter 3: The Manchuria Crisis and the Road to the Pacific War, 1931-1933 ............. 111 Chapter 4: The Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1939 ............................................................ 154 Chapter 5: Road to Pearl Harbor, 1940-1941 ............................................................... 199 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 247 Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 273 viii List of Figures Figure 1: The causal mechanism of the identity
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