Although there has been substantial progress toward gender equality, great disparities still persist. Across the globe, women face widespread gender gaps in the division of household responsibilities, economic resources, limited access to educational opportunities, and legal and political barriers to political power. Japan is one of the countries that has been falling behind, and has for several years been facing criticism from major international organisations for the persistent gender gaps in its economy, politics, and society. Furthermore, Japan has for a long time been influenced by Confucian tradition where the emphasis has been on strong gender norms and division. In 2013, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe launched new economic policies to restart and stimulate Japan’s economic growth. He encourages an increase of active inclusion of women’s participation, and his policies came to be widely known as “Womenomics”. The ambition of this paper is to discover Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s view on women’s role in his new policies, and to conduct a dimension analysis on “Womenomics”. The analysis is based on the theoretical framework of Confucianism and Liberal Feminism, to see whether one can discover elements of Confucianism and/or Liberal Feminism in “Womenomics”. The results indicate that the prime minister consider women’s role mostly in regards to economics, and the policies and the view on women’s role are foremost aligned with the political ideas of Liberal Feminism.

Postwar Japan’s defense policy is an anomaly; it is a non-neutral middle power that has regularly resisted translating its economic strength into military strength. This paper seeks to analyze postwar Japan’s defense policy at the international systemic and domestic unit levels through the use of neoclassical realism, and then make predictions as to where Japanese defense policy will go. First, this paper provides an overview of relevant neoclassical realist theoretical literature, before moving on to an examination of the norms created by Japan’s defense policies during the Cold War. The next chapter focuses on the post-Cold War evolution, in which systemic level factors pushed Japan towards rearmament. Next is an analysis of the most recent period of leadership by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, covering the challenges that Japan faces and the methods he and his administration have used to advance Japanese security policy, short of constitutional amendment. This paper then examines the current state and trends of national-level factors restricting policymakers, and predicts whether these trends will continue. This paper concludes that international-level pressures have consistently driven the major changes to Japanese defense policy, though these responses have been restricted by national-level factors, in particular Article 9 of the constitution and large pacifist protests. However, these factors are becoming less and less effective at restraining an expansion of Japan’s Self Defense Forces (SDF). Furthermore, there has been little effort to rollback the remilitarization of the SDF. Given the strength of the pro-constitutional-revision Liberal Democratic Party, the weakness of the opposition in the Diet, and the continuing decline of the importance of pacifism to the Japanese public, this paper concludes that Article 9 will be revised to allow for the expansion of Japan’s security policy. This conclusion can provide insight into how Japan will be able to act in the future, and thereby help plan the foreign policies of other nations in the region.

The thesis takes a look at the reforms of the current Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe and his Cabinet, specifically it evaluates the impact of the second arrow of Abenomics on the sustainability of the critical state of public debt of Japan.

The premiership of Shinzo Abe has had a significant impact on the debate surrounding Japanese foreign policy. In the autumn of 2020, Shinzo Abe resigned, ending what would become the country’s longest consecutive tenure in history, lasting from 2012 to 2020. Following the Second World War, Japan has per its 1947 constitution constrained its foreign policy unlike that of any other country of comparable size. During Shinzo Abe’s tenure, from 2012 to 2020, the academic debate surrounding the potential dismantling of said constraints has moved significantly towards finding a so-called remilitarization a likely outcome. International relations schools of realism and to some extent liberalism find that predictions of remilitarization might strike true while constructivist scholars find that this might be the case despite prior reservations. This is a significant shift in the debate consensus, especially on the part of constructivist analysis which often held that Japan’s unique character, be it norms or institutions, was inherently antimilitaristic. Through previous literature we learn that there was long a divide between authors arguing for a remilitarization being imminent while others take the opposite stance. A shift in Japanese foreign policy has a number of implications for international relations theory, previously a hallmark of constructivist argumentation surrounding identity and a thorn in the side of realist assumptions of power politics. A methodical approach of theory comparison sheds light on the empirical case of Japanese foreign policy by the means of assessing each relevant perspective’s arguments against each respective set of expectations in the event of a remilitarization. Through this study we find that contributions to the debate overwhelmingly argue for an increased possibility of a remilitarization taking place. Likewise, we find that this may come to play into the hands of both realism and liberalism as well as potentially doing so for constructivist analysis. Despite the case of an antimilitarist Japan being an example showcasing the strengths of constructivist analysis, it might instead provide an opportunity wherein it is able to showcase the flexibility and adaptability of constructivism as an analytical approach. The study also explores the possibility of whether there is room for employing a theoretically eclectic approach to the case at hand as a means to break the deadlock within the debate on the topic and offer analysis that escapes the pitfalls inherent in each theoretical perspective when employed on its own.

This thesis examines how Shinzo Abe’s historical perspectives on “comfort women” and the Nanjing Massacre are influenced by global demands. Abe’s official account on these issues have been affected by pressures to reconcile with South Korea and to face China’s rise for strategic reasons. This originates from sources including think tanks such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies and media. Joseph Nye’s concept of soft power will provide the theoretical background to analyze Abe’s views on both issues. The existence and method through which these pressures are applied will be detailed and explored. This research will hope to contribute to the understanding of historical memory in the Asia-Pacific and how it remains an issue that undergoes changes in the current political climate. / Graduate