Foreign Policy of Japan in the XXI Century: A Policy of Order or a Policy of Justice?

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FEDERAL STATE AUTONOMOUS EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

FOR HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs

Foreign Policy of Japan in the XXI Century: A Policy of Order or a Policy of Justice?

BACHELOR'S THESIS

Field of study: __International Relations__

Degree programme: __ 'HSE and University of London Parallel Degree Programme in International Relations'__

foreign policy japan

Okhrimenko Andrei Pavlovich

Moscow, 2020 Supervisor

Abstract

This thesis aims to uncover the moral drivers of the foreign policy of Japan. The study uses the theoretical framework of the Great Conversation between pluralist and solidarist camps of the English School. The camps debate the importance and desirability of the order and justice in global politics. The study primarily focuses on the XXI century but often employs a historical approach to explain contemporary developments. The research methods of the paper include discourse analysis and four case studies. This study critically reviews the academic discourse of the foreign policy of Japan and then conducts four case studies and discourse analysis. The case studies of the two pluralist and the two solidarist primary institutions were conducted. The pluralist institutions examined are nationalism and great power management, and solidarist institutions are democracy and the market. It was hypothesized that the impact of the pluralist primary institutions on the foreign policy of Japan is more significant that would mean that Japan conducts the foreign policy of order. This could add a social dimension to conventional realist power-centered understanding of Japanese foreign policy. However, the study disproves its initial hypothesis. It shows that the role of the solidarist institutions in the foreign policy of Japan is higher, that Japanese nationalism does not reinforce Japanese sovereignty, and Japan hardly engages in conscious great power management. These findings suggest that the foreign policy of Japan is a policy of justice.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Literature review

METHODOLOGY

1. Classical theories

1.1 Realism

1.2 Liberalism

1.3 Constructivism

2. The English school

2.1 Grotius

2.2 Gentz

2.3 Key Concepts

2.4 Pluralism

3.1 Solidarism

3. The role of primary institutions in the foreign policy of Japan

3.1 Nationalism

3.2 Great Power Management

3.3 Democracy

3.4 The Market

3.1 Order or Justice?

Conclusion

References

foreign policy japan

Introduction

The global liberal order is undergoing harsh times. Powerful actors around the world are increasingly challenging the so-called Western values. With an outbreak of the pandemic of COVID-19, it seems like nature itself decided to reverse globalization. The pandemic is yet another one in a long series of crises, ranging from the Iraq War and the Global Financial Crisis to Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, that undermined Western unity. Liberalism, however, is not exclusively Western ideology. One of the most powerful liberal states is located far in the East. It is Japan, the third-largest national economy in the world. After populism and anti-globalism had become a part of daily political life in the US and Euroscepticism had become firmly rooted in European political agenda, Japan became one of the candidates for the status of the leader of the global liberal order. But is Japan as liberal as it is often perceived? Japan's neighbors are Russia and China - an illiberal great power and an illiberal superpower. Unpredictable and nuclear-armed North Korea is not far away. The only liberal neighbor, South Korea, has a population with an extremely negative perception of Japan (Pew Research Center, 2013). It seems that to survive in such an unfriendly environment Japan must prioritize international order over justice. It must track closely the behavior of the great powers, just like realism predicts. It must also account for cultural differences to conduct most effective diplomacy. It must be also interested in developing effective measures of conflict resolution to coexist with its powerful neighbors. The common sense suggests that order must be a guiding moral principle for the foreign policy of Japan. Will this logic be confirmed by a deeper research?

Fortunately, one branch of scientific IR has a lot to say about the moral dilemma between order and justice in international politics. It also developed a robust account of the impact of social surroundings on a state. This theoretical approach is known as the English School. Although it is less well-known that realism, liberalism or constructivism, it becomes increasingly popular and more and more frequently mentioned in prominent the textbooks on IR theory (Dunne, Kurki & Smith, 2013). The English School claims that we live in international society underpinned by mutually agreed social practices or primary institutions. It assigns much value to history, asserting that we cannot understand contemporary politics without an understanding of the historical context. Most importantly, it keeps the doors open not only for theoretical but for moral discussions. The two opposing camps of the English School debate what is more desirable for international society: promotion of the liberal values in the expense of international stability or respect for state sovereignty and diversity despite the prevalence of tyranny and human rights abuses in many places of the world? This paper is not going to take sides in these debates. Instead, it is going to argue that the dilemma between order and justice is not merely an academic buzz but can be actually visible in the foreign policy of Japan. Fortunately, the English School provides the toolkit to determine what counts as a policy of order and what counts as a policy of justice. The major challenge is to determine which of the two prevails.

Literature Review

This work is openly sympathetic with the English School of international relations because it allows to maintain a dialogue between materialistic and ideational approaches to IR and for other reasons discussed in the part Theory in more detail. The English School was born from the works of the members of the British Committee that was established in 1959 to theoretical and moral foundation for British foreign policy. Not all members of the British Committee adhered to the ideas that later became English School. Those who did were Martin Wight and Hedley Bull. Wight argued that international relations can be divided into three traditions: Hobbesian or realist, Grotian or rationalist and Kantian or revolutionist (Wight, 1991). He claimed that rationalist tradition is a via media or a middle ground between the rationalist a revolutionist approaches that can help to maintain a dialogue between them. He also popularized a crucial for the English School notion of international society (Wight, 1977) and developed a historical approach to international relations as he compared the features of different pre-modern international societies over centuries. As it was demonstrated, the English School, like every respected approach to IR, has its roots in political philosophy. Again, like with other theories, these roots are ambiguous. For instance, Hedley Bull (1990) asserted that the views of Grotius were different from what later became known as Grotian tradition. His views are excellently summarized by Kingsbury (1996) in his contribution to the fundamental volume on historiography of IR The Classical Theories of International Relations by Clark & Neuman (1996). Kingsbury (1996) explained that Bull regarded Grotius much closer to revolutionism because Grotius used to rely on the natural law. Bull's own account of the rationalist tradition, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, remains the most influential work of the English School (Bull, 1977). In this work Bull reinforces Wights notions of international society and historicism and develops the concept of primary institutions, or unspoken sets of agreed norms that guide states' behavior and strengthen international society making it distinct from realist international system. Bull (1977, pp. 74-94) also outlined the central moral debate within the English School: the debate between pluralism and solidarism and explained why pluralist prioritize order and why solidarists put the emphasis on justice. As it is evident from the title of his work, Bull himself preferred order for practical reasons although he saw solidarist ideas as morally appealing. In spite of Bull's significance, the English School evolved beyond the works of Bull. It survived sever criticism from American IR scholars of various persuasions (for instance, Finnemore (2001) criticized the English School for the lack of methodological rigor and Mearsheimer (2005) labeled it as idealist). The School is arguably more popular now than back in the days of Bull. Barry Buzan (2014) in his excellent work An Introduction to the English School of International Relations summarizes the most contemporary version of the English School. He also elaborates on the less-well known concepts of the English School, such as the standard of civilization that is extremely important to understand the advocacy of universal human right by cosmopolitan solidarists. He showed awareness of the English School's weaknesses, such as insufficient attention to economic affairs and regional international societies. Indeed, until recently, major research projects of the English School concentrated on global West-centric international society, with the notable exception of above-mentioned Wight (1977). Buzan himself tried to fix this in his joint work with Yongjin Zhang called Contesting International Society in East Asia (Buzan & Zhang, 2014). In this volume numerous authors elaborated on the impact of primary institutions, including the developmental state, non-intervention, great power management, etc. on the foreign policy of East Asian states and how the region is constituted as a whole. In a separate chapter dedicated to Japan, Suzuki (2014) effectively demonstrated how contemporary foreign policy of Japan is inextricably tied with its history and social contexts of the global West-centric and regional East-Asian international societies. As a chapter by Suzuki (2014) reveals, the English School has a full range of tools to study individual states paying special attention to their history and social environment. This work aims to do exactly this, although it is very uncommon for the English School theorists. As there is not enough English School work on the foreign policy of Japan, this work also relies on papers produced by other major IR traditions. Fortunately, the commitment of the English School to the inter-theoretical dialogue justifies such approach.

Both realists and liberals have a comprehensive account of the Japanese foreign policy. Their most contemporary positions are summarized in The Oxford Handbook of the International Relations of Asia by Pekkanen, Ravenhill & Foot (2014). In his contribution to this volume Hughes (2014) reviews security policies of Japan paying special attention to the Japan-US alliance and predicts the future deepening of the Japan-US cooperation against the rising China. Earlier prominent realist accounts of Japanese foreign policy include Green (2001) who developed an influential notion of reluctant realism as a characteristic of Japanese foreign policy in a post-Cold War era. In another chapter about Japan in Pekkanen et al. (2014), Solis (2014) reviews the foreign economic policy of Japan from a liberal perspective. He explains how Japan increased its policy activism in response to decades of economic stagnation. In his earlier works he identifies new trends in the Japanese foreign economic policy: reorientation from the WTO framework to concluding bilateral and regional free trade agreements and increased usage of the Official Development Assistance as a tool in the Japan-China rivalry (Solis & Urata, 2007). Although the Oxford Handbook does not contain a constructivist chapter on the Japanese foreign policy, the constructivist research on Japan is quite abundant. One of the early influential contributions is Thomas Berger's study of the role of antimilitarism as a powerful policy constraint on the deepening of the Japan-US alliance (Berger, 1998) More recently, Yinan He (2009) conducted a comprehensive study of the role of historical memory in the Japan-China relations. He employs a comparison with the German-Polish reconciliation to demonstrate that Japan and China have effectively failed to construct a common understanding of the past which means that the WW2 legacy still profoundly influences how contemporary Japan and China perceive each other. Park (2015) engages in a similar analysis with regard to Japan and the Republic of Korea (from here on referred as South Korea) in his contribution to Asia's Alliance Triangle: US-Japan-South Korea Relations at Tumultuous Times by Gilbert Rozman (2015). However, he is more critical towards the position of the Government of Japan. He insists that the provocative behavior of the Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe fuels already existing tensions over historical memory between Japan and South Korea. In the same book Rozman demonstrates how the domestic debates over the substance of the Japanese national identity find their reflection in the foreign policy of Japan. He makes an interesting discovery that the school of thought that dominates actual foreign policy decision making, internationalism, is heavily underrepresented in the Japanese media coverage of foreign policy. Instead, the media space is divided between the nationalists and the pacifists.

Finally, no understanding of a foreign policy of a state would be complete without understanding of a domestic political structure. The Japanese democracy has long been defined by the dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party and various authors sought to understand this phenomenon in their own way. For instance, Ogura (2019) attacks the Japanese political system from the far-left positions. He labels it as oppressive and anti-democratic. He blames the Emperor system supported by the LDP in fostering nationalism and depriving the minorities in Japan from the fundamental human rights. Scheiner (2006) has a completely different view. In his book Democracy Without Competition in Japan: Opposition Failure in a One-Party Dominant State he argues that a combination of clientelism and the single member district plurality (the SMDP) electoral rules make it extremely difficult for the Japanese opposition to develop high quality candidates. According to Scheiner (2006) this explains the long-standing dominance of the LDP despite free and fair elections and well-protected civil rights.

Methodology

This study will rely on qualitative research methodology. Lamont (2015, p. 79) defines qualitative methodology as data collection techniques and analysis techniques or strategies that rely upon the collection of, and analysis of, non-numeric data. The English School's primary focus is on social phenomena, such as international society and informal norms and practices that underpin it. Social interactions between humans and by human-created structures (e.g. states) are so complex that even modern quantitative approaches struggle to grasp and translate all factors that influence them into numeric data. As Buzan (2014, p. 22) explains, the study of societies requires, first of all, understanding the consciousness behind them while material causality suits better the study of systems. In principle, the English School has nothing against quantitative research in international relations. It acknowledges the value of quantitative studies and has nothing close to the total rejection of positivism that is common to radical constructivist and post-structuralist researchers. The English School is much closer in this respect to conventional constructivism that claims that qualitative and quantitative studies can both enrich our understanding of IR.

More specifically, this work is a case study of the foreign policy of Japan in the XXI century. It is subdivided into four smaller case studies of the four primary institutions (durable social practices): nationalism, great power management, democracy, and the market. If Japanese nationalism reinforces Japanese sovereignty and Japan consciously tries to manage great power relations to achieve coexistence with its powerful neighbors, this will mean that Japan is a power of order. On the contrary, if Japan tries to export its vision of democracy and economic development even in the expense of international stability, this will mean that it is a power of justice. The suggested set of primary institutions differs from the traditional five primary institutions that Bull (1977, p. 95) regarded as the most important: the balance of power, diplomacy, great power management, international law, and war. However, as Bull was a pluralist, his set of institutions is somewhat biased towards order and does not suit to reveal the contradiction between order and justice in the foreign policy of Japan. Conversely, the set of two pluralist institutions (nationalism, the balance of power) and two solidarist (democracy, the market) institutions allows to detect both solidarist and pluralist tendencies in the Japanese foreign policy and answer the research question of this paper: whether the foreign policy of Japan is a policy of order (pluralist) or a policy of justice (solidarist). Moreover, all four primary institutions highlighted by this work are discussed in length by Buzan (2014, pp. 97-134). This proves that they are a part of the standard toolkit of the English School. 

The researchers from different camps often have competing views on different aspects of the foreign policy of Japan. For instance, realists explain the Japan-China rivalry with strategic factors, while constructivists emphasize the issue of historical memory. To determine the strength and weaknesses of each point of view, the work will employ discourse analysis that is a form of qualitative analysis that focuses on the interpretation of linguistic forms of communication (Lamont, 2015, p. 91). Apart from analyzing the academic discourse, this paper will occasionally use factual information provided by respected media with a substantial international audience (e.g. South China Morning Post) and databases (e.g. the World Bank Data). 

This work is also aware of the methodological weaknesses of the English School, such as methodological eclecticism and the theoretical ambiguity (Finnemore, 2001). Some primary institutions of the English School are indeed underspecified, especially those from the realm of political economy (Beeson & Breslin, 2014). For instance, the market seems to include trade and economic development, but what is its relationship with economic globalization? Are they different or interchangeable? There is obviously a lot to be done to finish the conceptualization of the primary institutions, although it is beyond the scope of this work. Methodological eclecticism and conceptual ambiguity, however, give the English School one critical advantage: it allows it to maintain the dialogue between the paradigms and bring together materialist and ideational explanations. Indeed, what causes the Japan-China rivalry: the struggle for power or historical memory? The English School's answer would be both (the details will be clarified later in this work). This may be not the most theoretically elegant answer but an answer that is best suited to inform real political action. And helping politicians to devise policies and make political choices is one of the major tasks of the scientific IR.

Classical Theories

The contemporary field of scientific IR is extraordinarily diverse and divided among several paradigms which are in turn subdivided among countless branches. Three of the paradigms, however, retain their dominance for already three decades: realism, liberalism, and constructivism. The English School remains less well-known but is gaining credit rapidly, thanks to the works of Buzan (2014), Linklater & Suganami (2006) and Navari & Green (2014). All three major paradigms developed comprehensive approaches to the foreign policy of Japan. The English School, as the via media, actively engages with all of the three, trying, first, to show that the differences between them are not incommensurable, and, second, to explain the phenomena which cause difficulties to realists, liberals, and constructivists. Therefore, it will be productive to examine realist, liberal, and constructivist stances on Japanese foreign policy, because each contains an essential grain of truth. As Mastanduno (2014) excellently put it, you cannot prove or disprove realism (or, in fact, any major IR theory). You can just find it more or less useful in certain circumstances. 

Realism

Although realism is quite a diverse church (Onea, 2012), most realists would agree that the logic of survival is the determining factor of a state's behavior. They tend to emphasize the everlasting nature of the struggle for power, rather than change. Structural realists argue that struggle for power is triggered by systemic and material variables, such as international anarchy and inequality in material capabilities (Waltz, 1979) while classical realists emphasize inherently flawed human nature and acknowledge the importance of domestic politics and non-material factors, such as ideology or status (Schweller, 2009). For realists, two factors have the strongest influence on the foreign policy of Japan: the Japan-US alliance and the rise of China (Hughes, 2014). 

Since the end of World War 2, the US has been a critical provider of Japanese security, allowing Japan to maintain a comparatively low level of military spending (1% of GDP) despite the communist threat. As Green (2001, p. 23) puts it, after the end of the Cold War, Japanese politicians increasingly started to fear that the attention of the US will be distracted from East Asia and Japan will be left alone against aggressive North Korea, Russia, and rising China. On the other hand, Japan was (and, to a large extent, remains) reluctant to get militarily involved in numerous regional conflicts in which the US participated. This abandonment versus entrapment dilemma is a primary focus of realist analysis of Japanese foreign policy. Paradoxically, abandonment remains on the agenda, even despite the rise of China. Obama's `pivot to Asia' was replaced by Trump's isolationism. American foreign policy becomes more and more unpredictable, and the US support of Japan in case of a major conflict with China is no longer unquestionable. Although the rise of China is a global concern, for Japan, it is an immediate question of survival due to geographic proximity. Although actual military clash seems impossible in the short run, the unresolved Senkaku islands territorial dispute can be a trigger for future increase of tensions and deterioration of bilateral relations. Therefore, realists predict that Japan will overcome its constitutional constraints and upgrade its already powerful Self-Defense Forces into a real conventional army (Hook, Gilson, Hughes & Dobson, 2005, pp. 127-154). This is likely to be accompanied by a deepening of Japan-US alliance, albeit continuing tensions about abandonment and entrapment (Mastanduno, 2014).

Liberalism

Contemporary liberals agree with realists that modern international system is anarchical, meaning that it lacks supreme authority to command sovereign states. Liberals, however, are much more positive about human nature and claim that mutually-beneficial interstate cooperation is possible (but not inevitable) even in the long run (Keohane & Nye, 1972). Liberals usually highlight three main factors that make long-run interstate cooperation more likely: formal institutions, the market economy, and democratic politics. Liberal institutionalists study how states deliberately create `the rules of the game' to reduce the cost of information (transaction costs) and increase the predictability of politics (North, 1990). International political economists, on their turn, study how market forces influence global politics and increase interdependence between state and non-state actors, thus reducing the possibility of conflict. Finally, democratic peace theorists mainly rely on empirical data and claim that no major war between stable democracies has ever happened. Therefore, democracies tend to resolve disputes by dialogue rather than military conflict (Doyle, 1986).

After World War 2, Japan spearheaded East Asian economic growth and established production networks across the whole region. Still, the US remained a major Japanese economic partner both in terms of investment and trade. This changed drastically with the rise of China first as a place for relocation of production and then as a market for export of services. China became Japan's largest import and export partner (Solis, 2014), which, according to liberal logic, must significantly restrain the possibility of conflict between the two nations. Japan and China are tied by a complex network of regional institutions, which include the Chiang Mai initiative, ASEAN+3, ASEAN Reginal Forum, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum. On the one hand, these institutions provide an opportunity for Japan and China to find common solutions to regional problems and thus reduce bilateral tensions. On the other hand, Japan and China participate in regional institutions that exclude one of the respective parties. For instance, Japan is not a part of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a China-inspired potential rival to the World Bank. At the same time, Japan is a member of the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, which deliberately excludes China. Liberals look more optimistically at the Japan-China relationship than realists, given the increasing level of interdependence between the two. However, even in the liberal paradigm, the major conflict between them is possible. After all, China remains a stable dictatorship with no visible prospects to democratize. Liberals warn that China's attempts to promote its own alternative to democratic values (Brдutigam, 1998) may become a source of global instability, to which Japan will have to react.

Constructivism

Constructivism was popularized by Alexander Wendt (Wendt, 1992) and replaced Marxism as a major alternative to realism and liberalism in the 1990s. It was a reaction to the inability of realists and liberals to explain the collapse of the USSR adequately. Although constructivism is often mentioned in line with realism and liberalism as one of IR theories, such comparison may be misleading. Instead, as Leheny (2014) puts it, constructivism is better understood when compared to rational choice: it is not a coherent IR theory, but rather a framework for thinking with certain epistemological assumptions. The rational choice paradigm assumes that scholars can impartially assess the objective reality. According to this perspective, which lies behind realism and liberalism, states assess the distribution of material resources in international system rationally and then try to maximize their national interest. Realists conclude that this results in the struggle for power, while liberals point out at the potential for cooperation. Constructivism draws an entirely different perspective: it rejects the notion that states are always rational and that international system has any objective parameters, such as international anarchy. Instead, states, non-state actors and even IR scholars themselves are deeply influenced by social norms and practices, and their actions often reflect their culture and identities. Although constructivism emerged as a critical approach (Tan, 2006), so-called `conventional constructivists prefer to put aside epistemological disputes with rational choice theorists and instead conduct their own research of states' behavior, paying particular attention to how international norms and state identities are constructed.

A great deal of constructivist research is dedicated to Japanese foreign policy. Constructivists point out how domestic values and norms influence key foreign policy decisions of Japan. According to constructivist scholars (Berger, 1998), Japan was (and, to an extent, remains) reluctant to turn its Self-Defense Forces into a real conventional army and conduct more assertive foreign policy because of the norm of antimilitarism is deeply engrained in the Japanese society. Constructivists, however, avoid making claims about the future. They acknowledge that norms and identities are in constant flux. Therefore, constructivists will hardly be surprised if a norm entrepreneur emerges (say, Prime-Minister Abe Shinzo) and introduces a new social norm that will allow for increased military spending and the formal establishment of conventional armed forces. Constructivist research has made an additional contribution to our understanding of the complex picture of Sino-Japanese contradictions: constructivists draw attention to the unresolved issue of historical memory that still exists between Japan and most of its Asian members (He, 2009). While the Japanese political elite feels that Japan has enough apologized for its WW2 crimes, politicians and the majority of ordinary people in China and South Korea think the opposite. This can partially explain, for instance, a sudden Japan-South Korea deterioration of relations and trade war, which started in 2019. 

The English School

Intellectual roots of the English School are uncertain, as it is often the case with major traditions of thought, not only in the field of IR. The members of the British Committee all belonged to the intellectual elite and were undoubtedly aware of the broad range of philosophical teachings from Confucius to Hegel. However, two political thinkers seem to have an especially strong influence on the formation of the English School's ideas. These men are a famous Dutch lawyer and philosopher Hugo Grotius and a much less famous Prussian statesman Friedrich Gentz. To understand the context of the later English School writings, it is worth examining them both in more detail.

Grotius

Hugo Grotius (1583 - 1645) lived his life during troubled times for Europe: the continent experienced severe military conflict triggered and exacerbated by the Catholic-Protestant rivalry. Grotius died three years before the epochal Peace of Westphalia (1648), which is commonly regarded as the beginning of the modern nation-states' system. Not surprisingly, Grotius was preoccupied with the issues of war and peace. He wanted to develop a system of rules that would prevent the repetition of the bloody Thirty Years' War (1618 - 1648). He dedicated his major work De jure belli ac pacis (1625) to the concept of just war, which outlines the reasons to start a just war (jus ad bellum) and how a just war must be conducted (jus in bello). This was, certainly, nothing new to philosophy: for instance, St. Augustine (354-430) had elaborated on the just war more than a millennium before. The merit of Grotius's position was that it applies to every state irrespective of its religion. As Kingsbury (1996) explains, for Grotius all reasons for just war (which were numerous but can be basically shortened to self-defense, revenge, and preventive attack) are based on natural law, which can be accessed by pure reason only. Grotius makes it clear that natural law is supreme to positive law and even to divine law. Grotius was not naпve about human nature and recognized that some people break the natural law. Therefore, sovereign states are essential to keep societies in order. But sovereigns (at least the majority of them) can come to a conclusion (using just their reason) that peace is a common good, and thus refrain from unjust wars and punish those who act otherwise. 

Thus, Grotius acknowledged the supremacy of national sovereignty and the real possibility for inter-state rivalry on the one hand but also thought that this rivalry could be managed by the set of unspoken but rationally accessible norms. This led Martin Wight (1991) to assign Grotius a position of via media between realism and revolutionism and even name this body of thought the Grotian tradition (the other two being the Hobbesian and the Kantian traditions respectively). Notwithstanding, whether this assignation is fair is a highly contested issue. Hedley Bull, for example, was eager to repeat that Grotian tradition is not at all the same as the philosophy of Grotius. Bull (1990), unlike Grotius, is a clear proponent of keeping law and morality apart. He insists that only mutual and voluntary consent on informal norms and rules can form a stable basis for international society and warns that overreliance on natural law ignores significant cultural differences between states. The situation when states differ too often on what exactly natural law is can lead to a never-ending conflict under the banner of natural law enforcement. Therefore, for Bull reliance on natural law means potentially dangerous justification for foreign intervention. Bull ascribes natural law thinking to a solidarist body of thought which is in some way reminiscent (but, critically, not the same) of what Wight (1991) calls revolutionism and is now widely referred to as liberalism. On the other hand, Vollerthun & Richardson (2017) in their study of philosophical foundations of the idea of international society claim that Grotius (though with specific nuances) is much closer to realism due to his absolutization of sovereignty, lack of robust conception of international society and support for Dutch nationalism. Wherever the actual truth lies, the ideas of Grotius, even if Wight somewhat misinterpreted them in the first instance, led the English School theorists to formulate the concepts of via media, international society, and primary institutions.

Gentz

The idea of primary institutions, or durable social practices which states follow and see as legitimate (Buzan, 2014, p. 16), is central to the English School. One of the most important of these primary institutions is the balance of power. Realists also share the notion of balance of power, but in a somewhat different sense. This difference is finely illustrated in the writings of Friedrich von Gentz (1764 - 1832). Gentz was not a well-known thinker, he often changed his views, and his writings were biased and sometimes inconsistent. However, he can be given credit for articulating some concepts that were better theorized by the English School writers much later. Being closely linked to European politics as a General Secretary of the Vienna Congress, he recognized Europe not as a mere collection of self-interested units, but as a `union or federation of states' (Little, 1996). The members are interested in keeping the existing order and thus observing the balance of power. Therefore, in this case, the balance of power appears to be a social structure, rather than a mechanical quality of the system. The most vivid example is the Concert of Vienna, which became a reality shortly before Gentz's death. During the Concert of Vienna major European powers deliberately restrained their predatory behavior in Europe (not in colonies, for sure) and applied limited punishment to outliers (for instance, Crimean War 1853 - 1856). Gentz, was, however, quite aware of the realist view on the balance of power, which tells that states build alliances against rising powers out of fear of being subverted (Little, 1996). Gentz insisted that such alliances are unnatural and cannot be durable, because they include diverse actors, which converge on countering an urgent threat only, for instance, the rise of Revolutionary France. Such dualism is entirely in line with the general theory of the English School which maintains that at times international society with its primary institutions may deteriorate and leave the way to international system with its logic of survival.

Key Concepts

The English School appeared from the writings of the British Committee in the middle of the XX century. The most fundamental and well-known work of the school is the Anarchical Society by Hedley Bull (1977), where he summarized core theoretical concepts of the English School and outlined the so-called `Great Conversation' between solidarists and pluralists, which will be explained in more detail later in this work. Subsequent writers developed these concepts, but the essence of the argument has changed little. The English School theorists distinguish three levels of analysis of international relations: international system, international society, and world society. International system is a collection of interacting states which are differentiated by material capabilities they possess. It is an entity that Kenneth Waltz (1979) and other structural realists have in mind when they theorize about power and security, relying mostly on positivist epistemology. 

The second level, international society, requires that states not only interact but share at least very basic common assumptions about acceptable behavior on the international stage or `rules of the game'. These informal rules are most often referred to as primary institutions by English School theorists. Among such primary institutions, English school authors list the balance of power, great power management, the market, international law, etc. Primary institutions are constructed by states, but also influence behavior and identities of states. To illustrate the point, after the post-WW2 economic miracle of Japan, success as a market economy became widely regarded as essential for regime survival in the majority of East Asian states (Beeson & Breslin, 2014), leading to the creation of a primary institution of developmental state. The logic of developmental state-led extremely diverse states of Southeast Asia to reduce trade barriers and establish a vast network of formal (or secondary) institutions to coordinate their economic policies. When developed enough, primary institutions help to maintain a considerable degree of order in international society even without a Hobbesian Leviathan. It is an important departure of the English School from realism, which claims that the international arena resembles the Hobbesian war of all against all. Curiously enough, Hobbes himself would have agreed with English School theorists, rather than realists. After all, he had to explain why if in the pure state of nature, people sacrificed their sovereignty over themselves to a Leviathan, princes of the XVII century never did so among themselves. As Vincent (1981) explains, the state of nature is much more tolerable for states than for individuals for three reasons. First, states are usually too strong to be destroyed by a single sudden attack. Second, states are not equal in the same sense as individuals. Even the weakest man has high chances to kill the strongest, but small states cannot seriously threaten great powers. Finally, states are not interested in prolonged conflict because it may deprive them of resources to maintain internal order. Therefore, states have an incentive to establish some `rules of the game' to regulate conflict but do not have enough incentives to abolish international anarchy. This line led the English School to reject the domestic analogy, which suggests that the same rules apply to international and domestic societies. (Suganami, 1989, pp. 13-14). It is noteworthy, however, that, according to Bull (1977, pp. 22-51) while a high degree of order in international society is possible, it is not inevitable. Bull was quite clear in his conviction that international society can deteriorate into something very close to realist international system if certain dangerous ideologies prevail and states will ignore each other's basic needs and interests. 

Finally, there is a third level of analysis or world society, which takes into consideration not only state actors but also individuals and various non-state actors, such as activist groups, multinational corporations, and NGOs. This concept also embraces humanity as a single entity that has its own needs and interests. In order to meet these needs, humanity may well get rid of sovereign states altogether. This line of thinking was once associated with Marxism, but today it mainly refers to liberalism. Nevertheless, Many English School theorists, for instance, Wжver (1998), experiment in this way, making their works resemble liberal theory.

From all the above-mentioned levels of analysis, the English School clearly prefers the second one, international society. However, the other two are also important. International system represents an alternative reality to which international society might one day collapse. The idea of world society is very appealing to masses and serves as a moral foundation for the political actions of states (Williams, 2010). Generally speaking, being able to keep moral debates open is one of the key strengths of the English School. This also makes it especially useful for politicians. Politicians are intuitive historians. In making their decisions they are hardly interested in methodological rigor, offered by major IR theories. Instead, they are always confronted with complicated moral choices, such as the choice between order and justice. The so-called `Great Conversation' of the English School provides a sound basis to inform their choices. This term refers to a debate between pluralist and solidarists wings of the English School, which was outlined already by Bull (1977, pp. 74-94) but continued well into the XXI century.

Pluralism

The pluralist camp of the English school prioritizes order. Pluralists assert that international society consists of extremely diverse states. These states often have conflicting visions of the best domestic order and human rights. It leads to a low level of trust among states and not very much space for shared international rules and norms, not even mentioning their collective enforcement. This view on international relations even led some writers, such as Halliday (1994), to label the English School a version of realism. For pluralists, however, differ from realists in several significant aspects. Most importantly, for pluralists, interstate conflict is not inevitable. In fact, most contemporary states are united by the desire to avoid military conflict. This is best achieved by championing non-intervention, state sovereignty and the balance of power. Thus, as Buzan (2014, p. 90) notes, while realism is about survival pluralism is about coexistence. For pluralists, the best policy is practical policy. Not surprisingly, they prefer positive law (a system of norms derived from practice) to natural law (a system of norms derived from God or naturally given). Some pluralists are sympathetic to the idea of international society underpinned by developed primary institutions and collective enforcement (Mayall, 2000); some are clearly opposed to it (Jackson, 2000). Notwithstanding, they are united in labeling such ideas as utopian and unrealizable. For instance, Jackson (2000) argues that Western states often label others as inferior on the ground of weak enforcement of human rights. For him, this resembles the notorious XIX century's standard of civilization. According to this notion, some states were deemed `barbaric' (Mill, 1887) and could be dominated until they conform to the `universal' (but in fact, Western) standards. With the declining relative power of the West, it can no longer dictate its will unilaterally. Pluralists warn that continued attempts to promote human rights and spread democracy are utopian and will meet only increased resistance, and, therefore, politically undesirable. 

According to Bull (1977, p. 95), key pluralist primary institutions are the balance of power, diplomacy, great power management, international law, and war. He explains in detail how these institutions emerged after the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and then evolved until the middle of the XIX century when they took more or less contemporary shape. Sovereignty (in the form of non-intervention) and nationalism are the other two crucial pluralist institutions discussed by Buzan (2014, pp. 97-112). The last two occupy a special place in the foreign policy of Japan. Japan carefully observes the principle of non-intervention in its relations with ASEAN states. At the same time, many point out (Aslanova, 2010) that the Japan-US alliance limits Japan's sovereignty. Extreme nationalism was among the primary causes of Japan's catastrophic WW2 defeat. Nowadays, nationalism still fuels Japanese relations with China, South Korea, and Russia. A detailed analysis of the role of non-intervention and nationalism in the foreign policy of Japan is essential to determine whether order or justice prevail in Japanese foreign policy. It will be done later in this work. 

Solidarism

As it was shown, pluralists like to present solidarists as dangerous idealists. As Buzan (2014, pp. 115-116) notes, extreme solidarism is indeed almost irreconcilable with pluralism. As he puts it, so-called cosmopolitan solidarists think that international society has developed enough to converge on issues human rights, individual security, and democracy. Besides, cosmopolitan solidarists argue that such problems as global social inequality and climate change cannot be effectively solved by sovereign states alone. Cosmopolitan solidarists clearly prefer natural law to positive law and prioritize individual security over state sovereignty. Linklater (1998) is one of the most famous representatives of cosmopolitan solidarism. He argues that international society is legitimate precisely because it is the best way to promote the interests of the whole humankind. He stresses that globalization makes states around the world undergo similar experiences and the process of social learning. Globalization also makes various non-sate actors more influential. Therefore, according to Linklater, states must be transformed internally to take into account the interests of groups (various activist or religious communities) who no longer primarily identify with any particular state. He even claims that citizenship in its contemporary form deprives individuals of their fundamental rights and hence must be reformed in a cosmopolitan fashion.

However, there is another version of solidarism that Buzan (2014, p. 116) calls state-centric solidarism. State-centric solidarists agree with cosmopolitan solidarists in that sates can go far beyond coexistence and develop a complex network of primary and secondary institutions and even collective enforcement. Nevertheless, state-centric solidarists side with pluralists in that sovereign states by far remain dominant actors in international society, and it is unlikely to change in the middle run at least. State-centric solidarist note that while humanity as a whole may be the first priority, it simply lacks agency to defend its interests. In reality, sovereign states are the most influential promoters of solidarist and even cosmopolitan ideas. `The great society of humankind' is a powerful moral, not political referent. The finest example of state-centric solidarism is Vincent (1986), who suggests that states could first agree on collective enforcement of only basic rights. According to Vincent, the most basic right is the right for food. Indeed, the vast majority of states irrespective of their culture agree that all people have a right for food. States could start from a modest level and then could further negotiate the boundaries of collective enforcement that might be stretched to freedom from arbitrary violence and further. After all, there are situations when collective enforcement is necessary, like the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.

Solidarists also attach great importance to pluralist primary institutions but often reinterpret them creatively. For instance, solidarists are keen to argue that if states agree among themselves on the observance of certain norms, it is an exercise of state sovereignty, not a diminishing of it. Two primary institutions, however, stand out in the solidarist agenda. These primary institutions are democracy and the market. For instance, some theorize that democracy may cause sates to conduct specific foreign policies (Doyle, 1986). But do Japanese really understand democracy in the same way as Europeans and Americans? After all, can a state where one party (the LDP in the case of Japan) overwhelmingly dominates politics be called a democracy at all? The market, on its turn, also matters vastly for Japanese foreign policy. The importance of success as a market economy was acknowledged by the Japanese political elite long before WW2, which allowed Japan to build a competitive economy and become a serious player in the international arena both during WW1 and WW2. After the catastrophic defeat of 1945, all state's resources were dedicated to succeeding as a capitalist economy, making the market not only an instrument of Japanese foreign policy but an essential part of Japanese identity. However, can Japanese economic policy with its high degree of protectionism be really regarded as solidarist? Thus, the analysis of the role of non-intervention, nationalism, democracy and the market can give a detailed picture of how order and justice interact and conflict in the foreign policy of Japan.