Les employés civils sur les bases américaines au Japon. La face cachée de la coopération nippo-américaine

U.S. military bases in Japan, generally viewed as the cornerstones of the U.S.-Japan security system, have been studied from various angles: their strategic utility, their role in Japan’s defense policy, or in the bilateral relationships between Tokyo and Washington. Under this generalframework, special attention has been paid to U.S. bases in Okinawa, which concentrate most of the U.S. military presence in the archipelago as well as subsequent problems such as the coexistence with local populations or their environmental impact. Hence, besides the prominent military nature of the bases, they encompass a civil dimension without which these facilities could not operate properly. By focusing on this often neglected aspect, this study aims at depicting the scope of the civil component of the personnel working on the U.S. bases, its interactions with the military component, and the evolution of its legal status. But it also stresses the important role played by the Japanese employees. As the American military presence has been criticized by pacifist groups and leftist organizations in Japan, the very existence of this local employment system reflects the ambivalent nature of the bases as both objects of political contestation and social integration. The local employment system is actually also an adjustment variable for the burden-sharing issue as a recurrent factor of tensions between the United States and Japan