Abstract
The impact of the ‘Abe Doctrine’ can best be comprehended through its underpinning revisionist ideology. Abe’s ideology derives from a tradition of pre-war colonial and wartime attempts to assert for Japan a position as a first-rank nation and leader within Asia and a post-war ambition to be regarded as an autonomous state, US equal partner and liberal-capitalist power facing down authoritarianism. Abe’s pursuit of this role demands the casting off of international and domestic constraints imposed by defeat and the negative burden of history. In order to end the ‘post-war regime’ and return Japan to great power status, the Doctrine must overturn taboos on constitutional revision, patriotic education, the historical legacies of the ‘comfort women’, the Tokyo Tribunals and prime ministerial visits to Yasukuni Shrine.
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Notes
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Abe Shinzō and Hyakuta Naoki, Nihon yo, Sekai no Mannaka de Sakihokor?, Tokyo, Waku Kabushikikaisha, 2014, pp. 48–50.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Japan, ‘Statement by Prime Minister Abe: pledge for everlasting peace’, 26 December 2013, http://japan.kantei.go.jp/96_abe/statement/201312/1202986_7801.html.
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© 2015 Christopher W. Hughes
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Hughes, C.W. (2015). The Origins and Ideological Drivers of the ‘Abe Doctrine’. In: Japan’s Foreign and Security Policy Under the ‘Abe Doctrine’: New Dynamism or New Dead End?. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137514257_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137514257_2
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