Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Hagström, Linus
• Hanssen, Ulv

Titel

War is Peace: The Re-articulation of ‘Peace’ in Japan’s China Discourse

Ist Teil von

• Review of international studies, 2016, Vol.42 (2), p.266

Erscheinungsjahr

2016

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This article demonstrates that a national identity defined by a normative commitment to peace is not necessarily an antidote to remilitarisation and war. More specifically, the article takes issue with the debate about the trajectory of Japan’s security and defence policy. One strand of the debate holds that Japan is normatively committed to peace while the other claims that Japan is in the process of remilitarising. This article argues that the two positions are not mutually exclusive – a point that has been overlooked in the literature. The article uses discourse analysis to trace how ‘peace’ was discussed in debates about China in the Japanese Diet in 1972 and 2009–12. It demonstrates how rearticulations by right wing discourses in the latter period have depicted peace as something that must be defended actively, and thus as compatible with remilitarisation or military normalisation. Japan’s changing peace identity could undermine rather than stabilise peaceful relations with its East Asian neighbours.