Newsletter No. 1313
Research-Review
March 8, 2009

 

BOOK REVIEW: PENN ON MIYAGI’S “JAPAN’S MIDDLE EAST SECURITY POLICY”

Our field is narrow enough that major books directly addressing Japanese relations with Islamic countries are relatively infrequent. However, Yukiko Miyagi (Shingetsu Member No. 34), who is a Japanese political scientist based in the UK, has just produced such a book. This week I had the pleasure of reading her work. Although book reviews have still not become very common on the Shingetsu Newsletter, Miyagi’s book is one we cannot overlook. Here is the basic profile:

Japan's Middle East Security Policy: Theory and Cases
By Yukiko Miyagi
Sheffield Centre for Japanese Studies / Routledge Series
September 2008
Hardback, 224 Pages
List Price: US$150.00

Official Description

This study examines how Japanese policy toward Middle East security issues is shaped by the need to both maintain Japan’s security alliance with the US and its oil relationship with states in the Middle East. Yukiko Miyagi introduces the historic roots of Japan’s policy, and then focuses on the major contemporary cases—the Iraq war, the Iranian nuclear crisis, and the Arab-Israeli conflict, to expose and explain how clashing interests and dilemmas were negotiated to arrive at policy outcomes. The author also sheds light on the utility of mainstream International Relations theories for understanding Japan’s behaviour. How do we understand the policy of a self-declared ‘anti-militarist’ state forced to operate in a realist world and for whom energy supplies are a matter of vital national security? This study shows how neither realism nor its rivals, such as constructivism, can wholly explain Japan’s behaviour and suggests a theoretical framework for doing so. Filling a major gap in our understanding of an increasingly important area of study Japan’s Middle East Security Policy is an essential read for those interested in Japan’s International Relations, Middle East politics, security studies and foreign policy.

Review Excerpts

"Yukiko Miyagi's volume fills a major gap in the literature on Japan's relations with the Middle East. This volume makes a major contribution in expanding our theoretical understanding of Japan's engagement of the region, by providing an integrated framework of analysis combining international systemic factors, US-Japan alliance considerations, and domestic norms and policy processes. It provides splendid and up-to-date empirical detail on Japan's reaction to security issues in the Middle East involving energy, nuclear and other security issues. This book is an essential read for scholars and students interested in Japan's ties with the Middle East and its emerging global security role."

Dr. Christopher W. Hughes, Reader, University of Warwick, UK

"This is the first work seriously undertaken on Japan's policy toward the Middle East. Miyagi's book is the best work ever in this field, showing how various patterns of Japan's policy are shaped in the condition when it is torn between the Middle East and the US, with deep theoretical analysis and rich empirical data. Her work contributes greatly to understand Japan-Middle East relations and opens a new frontier to study the Japanese foreign policy."

Keiko Sakai, Professor, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan

"This book is a valuable addition to the study of Japanese foreign policy making. It offers comprehensive analyses of the shift in Japan's Middle East policy from the traditional pro-Arab attitude based on its energy-vulnerability to the proactive support to the United States with historical, theoretical and policy-process perspectives."

Tomohito Shinoda, Professor of International Relations, International University of Japan

Review by Michael Penn

It certainly caught my attention when I read that my colleague Keiko Sakai described Miyagi’s book as “the best work ever in this field.” Arguably, that description is true. There are many academic articles out there on “Japan-Middle East relations”—some of them quite good—but only a few works at book length. Most of them are edited volumes. The only real comparisons in terms of full-length English-language works might be Michael Yoshitsu’s Caught in the Middle East: Japan’s Diplomacy in Transition (1984) or Kunio and Motoko Katakura’s Japan and the Middle East (1991). Those older studies remain valuable, but for obvious reasons they can tell us little about the contemporary Japanese policies in West Asia. Miyagi’s book brings us up to date, since she focuses on roughly the 2003-2006 period.

Yukiko Miyagi writes as a political scientist. To be more precise, the book is written like a political science PhD dissertation. I presume that this book is essentially a published version of the dissertation she completed at the University of Sheffield. To evaluate the writing style of the book, it really depends on the reader’s preference. If you enjoy social science writing, then Miyagi’s style is a clear and accessible example of that. If your tastes are more literary and artistic, the prose is likely to strike you as rather dry and bloodless.

More important, however, is the issue of content. Here my evaluation is unambiguous: Miyagi really gets it. The judgments that she makes are on the mark. She identifies correctly the general forces that shape Japanese foreign policy, and her approach is even-handed and perceptive. There was not a single place in the book where I found myself in disagreement with one of her assertions. In short, she nailed it. In the second half of the book, she even taught me a few things that I didn’t know.

Let’s briefly review each chapter:

Chapter 1: Aims, Debates, and Theoretical Framework

In most political science dissertations there is an opening chapter much like this one. You know the one I’m talking about: The chapter in which the candidate must demonstrate their mastery of the existing literature. Miyagi reviews different theoretical approaches to Japanese foreign policy: realism, liberalism, constructivism, the power of norms, etc. Her review is competent and sound, but I’ve already read too many chapters like this one in my time. Not my cup of tea.

Chapter 2: Japan’s Policy toward Middle East Security Issues

Here Miyagi begins to address Japan’s overall foreign policy position in West Asia. There are already a lot of academic articles out there discussing the question of Tokyo’s balancing act between the United States and Gulf oil states. Miyagi weighs into this debate in a credible way. One fresh aspect of her approach is that she gives nearly equal weight to the question of high-level Japanese engagement vs. low-level engagement.

Chapter 3: Policy Determinants and the Policy-Making Process

Here is where my interest begins perking up. I’m always interested in reading about the balance of power between and within policymaking institutions, and this is where Miyagi starts addressing this matter. She doesn’t ignore the influence of the media and the general public, although personally I would have liked to have seen more on that. Miyagi seems to have a very good grasp of the formal policymaking process. One thing that I really like about this chapter is her clear recognition that the norms of the governing elite contrast markedly with the norms of the larger society.

Chapter 4: The Iraq War

Ahh, case studies! When I do read political science books of this type I’m usually tempted to go straight to the “case studies” because for me the theories mean far less than the specifics. I’ve had a long-running fight with some of my academic colleagues over the fact that I don’t really believe that politics is a “science” so much as it is an “art” grounded in specific realities. At any rate, Miyagi’s account of Japan’s policy on the Iraq War is solid. Since I’m in the process of finishing a book on this topic myself and am deeply familiar with the subject matter, there weren’t too many surprises for me here. On the other hand, I don’t have any substantial complaints about her account either.

Chapter 5: The Iranian Nuclear Crisis

By this point in the book, Miyagi is starting to move further away from published accounts and is relying more on interviews with policymakers and experts. This means that much of what she presents is fresh. I have also written on the Azadegan issue, for example, but if I were to look again at that subject, I would definitely closely consult with Miyagi’s book as I did so. My only complaint with this chapter would be that she ends her account in September 2005. It would have been better, I think, to update it through September 2006 when the Azadegan oil deal was abandoned by the incoming Abe administration. In that way, the story would have been more complete.

Chapter 6: Syria Under US Hostility

Hands down my favorite chapter in this book. No one—ever—has published a serious examination of Japan-Syria relations. Miyagi’s account here is therefore built from the ground-up almost exclusively upon interviews and other primary sources. Anyone writing on Japan-Syria relations will henceforth have to take this chapter as their starting point. This chapter alone makes the book worth the purchase price.

Chapter 7: Findings and Implications

This is where Miyagi sums it up and ties the case studies back to the theoretical issues.

Final Thoughts

This is an academic hardback costing too much money. You are looking at US$120 or more to acquire this book. But if you are serious about understanding Japanese foreign policies in West Asia, you’ve just got to hold your breath and lay down the cash. The style is rather dry, but in terms of content Miyagi’s book is both judicious and insightful. It immediately ranks as one of the key works in our field. Buy it. Read it.

In conclusion, let me offer my congratulations to Dr. Miyagi herself. You’ve done excellent work here. I hope that you will in the future stop being a silent Shingetsu Member and begin to offer some of your considerable insights directly to our network. That would, I feel, be a benefit to all of us.