Rich nation, no army : The politics of reconstructing national identity in postwar Japan

Postwar Japan offers rich material for the exploration of opposing theories on the nature and politics of national identity. In this dissertation, I apply a theoretical framework based on Gramsci\u27s notion of hegemony to explain how Japanese national identity was reconstructed after World War II. Adapting a model of institutional change that stresses the role of crisis in provoking punctuated transformations in institutions, I characterize national identity as an institution and argue that the interaction of perceptions of deep crisis, alternative conceptions of national identity, and successful political entrepreneurship explain the transformation of national identity in postwar Japan. I assert that a group of political entrepreneurs centered around Yoshida Shigeru took advantage of the sense of crisis that accompanied surrender and occupation to construct an alternative conception of national identity that portrayed Japan as a peace state focused on the goals of national reconstruction and economic growth. These entrepreneurs, working within the constraints set and the opportunities provided by the Allied occupation, adapted or created a set of institutions that established as hegemonic a new conception of national identity. Drawing on prewar precedents and symbols, they set the fundamental assumptions about national identity that would channel Japanese politics for most of the postwar period. Applying the insights of my analysis of the postwar period, I also examine the debate over national identity in contemporary Japan. I argue that the lack of a comparable sense of crisis suggests that punctuated change in national identity is unlikely, despite a dramatic transformation in the structural context of the postwar identity. My framework unites structural factors (crisis) with culture (alternative conceptions of identity) and agency (political entrepreneurship) to provide a model which more fully captures the complex politics of the processes of identity transformation. Further, my analysis suggests that both cultural theories (that assert national identity as immutable) and constructivist theories (that portray identity as infinitely malleable) fail to account persuasively for both the continuities and discontinuities in Japanese national identity