Description
Book SynopsisIn this his latest work, Gavan McCormack argues that Abe Shinzo’s efforts to re-engineer the Japanese state may fail, but his radicalism continues to shake the country and will have consequences not easy now to predict. The significance of this book will be widely recognized, particularly by those researching contemporary world politics, international relations and the history of modern Japan. McCormack here revisits and reassesses his previous formulations of Japan as construction state (doken kokka), client state (zokkoku), constitutional pacifist state, and colonial state (especially in its relationship to Okinawa). He adds a further chapter on what he calls the ‘rampant state’, that outlines the increasingly authoritarian or ikkyo (one strong) turn of the Abe government in the fifth year of its second term. And he critically addresses the Abe agenda for constitutional revision.
Table of ContentsPreface
Chapter 1 : The Improbable Package
The Improbable Package – Imperial, Pacifist, Democratic
Peace, Asia, and Article 9
San Francisco and “Normalization”
Abe 1: 1993–2007
Abe 2: 2012–2016
Abe 3: 2017–2018
Chapter 2 : The Client State
Poodle Powers
Servility
Challenging Clientelism, 2005–2010
Positive Pacifism
Japan the Beautiful
Chapter 3: The Client State’s Client State
Japan in the East [China] Sea
Inclusion/Exclusion, and Deceit
An “Okinawan Way”
“Kempakusho” and “All Okinawa”
The Enigmatic Governor
Court Proceedings
• The Experts Report, 2015
• Wakai/Conciliation, 2016
• Speed Trial, 2016
• State of Play, 2017–2018
Chapter 4: Okinawa – State Violence and Civic Resistance
Public Enemy Number One
Civil Suits
Security
Struggle without End
Table : Japan vs Okinawa, 1995–2018
Chapter 5: Around the East [China] Sea
China
North Korea
• Rogue Regime
• North Korea “as it is”
• On Global Tables
• Rehearsing Invasion
• Sanctions and Law
Russia and the Putin Plan
South-Western Frontier Islands – Yonaguni, Miyako, and Ishigaki
Mage Island
Senkaku/Diaoyu
Communities
Chapter 6 : The Construction State
Resilience
Sustainability
Contents vii
The Nuclear State
The Ever Faster State
War and Gambling
Chapter 7 : The Constitutional State
Popular Sovereignty and Symbolic Emperor
Revision Agendas
• I: Cold War era
• II: LDP, 2012
• III: Abe, 2014–2017
• Emperor vs. Prime Minister
• Unresolved Contradictions
Chapter 8 : The Rampant State
Ikkyo – “One Strong”
Moritomo Gakuen
Kake Gakuen Veterinary College
Conspiracy
Secrets
Abe Triumphant, October 2017
Chapter 9 : Conclusion
Afterword
Index
