Race, Status, and Japanese Revisionism in the Early 1930S Steven Ward a a Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar Published Online: 01 Nov 2013

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Security Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fsst20 Race, Status, and Japanese Revisionism in the Early 1930s Steven Ward a a Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar Published online: 01 Nov 2013.

To cite this article: Steven Ward (2013) Race, Status, and Japanese Revisionism in the Early 1930s, Security Studies, 22:4, 607-639, DOI: 10.1080/09636412.2013.844517 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2013.844517

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Race, Status, and Japanese Revisionism in the Early 1930s

STEVEN WARD

This paper develops and illustrates a novel theoretical explanation for maximal revisionist challenges to the status quo. I argue that some rising great powers become dissatisﬁed with the normative and constitutive structure of the status quo and therefore inca- pable of or unwilling to orient themselves toward reassurance, not because of increasing capabilities but rather due to the domestic political effects produced by perceptions of status immobility—the idea that the status quo is unable to accommodate the rising state’s claims to increased status and prestige. I illustrate the argument by showing that Japan’s increasing revisionism after 1931 can in large part be explained by widespread perceptions of status immobility linked to Japanese understandings of the role of race in the maintenance of the Western-dominated status hierarchy.

The debate over the origins of revisionism has not progressed much past its classical realist roots.1 Even the popular contention that an increase in capabilities leads to increasing revisionism is suspect.2 Rising states tend to have long time horizons and can afford to bide their time rather than take large risks. Not only do they usually need stable, peaceful environments in

Downloaded by [Georgetown University] at 10:20 03 November 2013 which to develop economic and military strength, they can also generally

Steven Ward is a visiting assistant professor of Government at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar. For helpful comments, the author would like to thank Daniel Nexon, Keir Lieber, Andrew Bennett, Zacc Ritter, two anonymous reviewers, and the editors of Security Studies. 1 For recent entries, see Jason Davidson, “The Roots of Revisionism: Fascist Italy, 1922–1939,” Security Studies 11, no. 4 (Summer 2002): 125–59; Davidson, The Origins of Revisionist and Status-Quo States (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). See also Steve Chan, “Can’t Get No Satisfaction? The Recognition of Revisionist States,” International Relations of the Asia Paciﬁc 4, no. 2 (August 2004): 207–38. 2 Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Davidson, “The Roots of Revisionism”; John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton, 2001).

607 608 Steven Ward

reduce the costs of major war and increase their chances of winning simply by waiting.3 Contemporary debates over grand strategy in China confirm this in- sight. Since Deng Xiaoping was paramount leader, Chinese foreign policy has mostly been oriented toward reassurance and patience. In 2004, this orientation became even more explicit with the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) official Zheng Bijian’s introduction of the concept of the “peaceful rise”—a descriptor that was replaced only months after its emergence by the term “peaceful development,” apparently in response to concerns that “rise” evoked images of the revisionist rising powers of the first half of the twentieth century.4 While rising states seem to have incentives to bide their time and focus on reassuring other great powers rather than upsetting the status quo, they sometimes do (as China may) adopt grand strategic orientations that reject and challenge the status quo at its most basic levels. This article builds upon the growing literature on status in international relations to develop a theoretical explanation for the adoption of maximally revisionist foreign policies by rising great powers. I argue that some rising great powers become inca- pable of or unwilling to orient themselves toward reassurance, not because of increasing capabilities but rather due to the domestic political effects produced by perceptions of status immobility—the idea that the status quo is unable to accommodate the rising state’s claims to increased status. Status immobility influences grand strategic shifts in two ways. First, it may pro- duce preferences for systemic revisionism in some individual elites; second, it alters the discursive and political environment within a state in ways that advantage the advocates of revisionism and facilitate their increased influ- ence on policy. I illustrate the argument by showing that Japan’s increasing revisionism after 1931 can in part be explained by widespread perceptions of status immobility linked to Japanese understandings of the role of race in the maintenance of the Western-dominated status hierarchy.

REVISIONISM Downloaded by [Georgetown University] at 10:20 03 November 2013 Maximal or systemic revisionism is a grand strategic orientation that rejects and challenges the international status quo at its most basic levels: the hege- monic leadership of the system and/or the constitutive norms, principles,

3 Dale Copeland, The Origins of Major War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000); Robert Powell, In the Shadow of Power: States and Strategies in International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999). 4 Catherine Keyser and Su Lin, “Conceptualizing Foreign Policy: The ‘Peaceful Rise’ Debate Among China’s Scholars,” in New Dimensions of Chinese Foreign Policy, ed. Sujian Guo and Shiping Hua (New York: Rowman and Littleﬁeld, 2007). Race, Status, and Japanese Revisionism in the Early 1930s 609

and rules that undergird the system’s hierarchic and normative structure.5 This deﬁnition is consistent with the way many classical realists conceived of “revolutionary” revisionism, and it moves beyond the more common con- ception of revisionism as a commitment to al