Japanese Public Opinion and the War on Terrorism

Transcription

1 Japanese Public Opinion and the War on Terrorism

2 Palgrave Macmillan Series in International Political Communication Series editor: Philip Seib, University of Southern California (USA) From democratization to terrorism, economic development to conflict resolution, global political dynamics are affected by the increasing pervasiveness and influence of communication media. This series examines the participants and their tools, their strategies and their impact. It offers a mix of comparative and tightly focused analyses that bridge the various elements of communication and political science included in the field of international studies. Particular emphasis is placed on topics related to the rapidly changing communication environment that is being shaped by new technologies and new political realities. This is the evolving world of international political communication. Editorial Board Members: Hussein Amin, American University in Cairo (Egypt) Robin Brown, University of Leeds (UK) Eytan Gilboa, Bar-Ilan University (Israel) Steven Livingston, George Washington University (USA) Robin Mansell, London School of Economics and Political Science (UK) Holli Semetko, Emory University (USA) Ingrid Volkmer, University of Melbourne (Australia) Books Appearing in this Series: Media and the Politics of Failure: Great Powers, Communication Strategies, and Military Defeats By Laura Roselle The CNN Effect in Action: How the News Media Pushed the West toward War in Kosovo By Babak Bahador Media Pressure on Foreign Policy: The Evolving Theoretical Framework By Derek B. Miller New Media and the New Middle East Edited by Philip Seib The African Press, Civic Cynicism, and Democracy By Minabere Ibelema Global Communication and Transnational Public Spheres By Angela M. Crack Latin America, Media, and Revolution: Communication in Modern Mesoamerica By Juanita Darling Japanese Public Opinion and the War on Terrorism Edited by Robert D. Eldridge and Paul Midford

3 Japanese Public Opinion and the War on Terrorism Edited by Robert D. Eldridge and Paul Midford

4 JAPANESE PUBLIC OPINION AND THE WAR ON TERRORISM Copyright Robert D. Eldridge and Paul Midford, Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. First published in 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the US a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number , of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Japanese public opinion and the war on terrorism / edited by Robert D. Eldridge and Paul Midford. p. cm. (The Palgrave Macmillan series in international political communication) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Terrorism Japan Public opinion. 2. Public opinion Japan. 3. War on Terrorism, 2001 Public opinion. I. Eldridge, Robert D. II. Midford, Paul. HV6433.J32J dc A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: August Transferred to Digital Printing 2009

5 Robert Eldridge wishes to dedicate this book to his mother, Maureen Eldridge. Paul Midford wishes to dedicate this book to his mother, Carol E. Midford.

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7 Contents List of Figures List of Tables Contributors Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations ix xi xv xvii xix Introduction 1 Robert D. Eldridge and Paul Midford 1 Japanese Mass Opinion toward the War on Terrorism 11 Paul Midford 2 Framing the Japanese Homeland Security Debate: Mass Media and Public Opinion 43 Stephanie A. Weston 3 Japan s Insider and Outsider Media Discourse about the SDF Dispatch to Iraq 91 Mark Hollstein 4 Japanese Political Parties Face Public Opinion: Leading, Responding, or Ignoring? 125 Paul Midford and Paul D. Scott 5 Japanese Intellectuals and Public Opinion in the War on Terrorism 159 Robert D. Eldridge and Chijiwa Yasuaki 6 Japanese Civil Society, NGOs, and Spatialized Politics: Mobilizing Public Opinion and the War in Iraq 185 Paul D. Scott 7 Public Opinion in a Base Community: Okinawa and the War on Terrorism 207 Robert D. Eldridge

8 viii CONTENTS Conclusions 235 Robert D. Eldridge and Paul Midford Bibliography 241 Index 259

9 Figures 3.1 Newspaper coverage of SDF in Iraq by square inches TV coverage of SDF activities in Iraq by percentage of program time Newspaper coverage of all aspects of SDF forces in Iraq by square inches TV coverage of Samawah security by percentage of program time Newspaper coverage of Samawah security by square inches TV coverage of government positions on SDF deployment to Iraq by percentage of program time Newspaper coverage of government positions on SDF deployment to Iraq by square inches TV inclusions of nongovernment comments on SDF deployment to Iraq by seconds of program time Newspaper inclusions of nongovernment comments on SDF deployment to Iraq by square inches Number of articles placed in each journal on the three themes (between November 2001 and August 2004). 164

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11 Tables 1.1 Prospect of a U.S. attack on Iraq (all figures in percentages) (a) Japanese opinion regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; (b) public opinion in Germany regarding the wars (all figures in percentages) Was the war in Iraq justified? (all figures in percentages) Reasons for supporting and opposing the U.S. invasion of Iraq (Mar ; all figures in percentages) Reasons for supporting Koizumi s statement supporting the invasion of Iraq (of the 36 percent who stated support in a Mar , Asahi Shimbun poll; all figures in percentages) Legitimate reasons for going to war (all figures in percentages) Results of a November 2001 Yomiuri Shimbun poll asking how effective military force would be at routing out terrorism (all figures in percentages) Results of an October 2004 cross-national poll that Asahi Shimbun participated in, asking whether the Iraq occupation (War) contributed to the war on terrorism? (all figures in percentages) Results of an April 2003 Yomiuri Shimbun poll asking about the effectiveness of the Iraq War in reducing the WMD proliferation threat (all figures in percentages) Results of a poll conducted by Asahi Shimbun asking: America invaded Iraq because that nation was developing/possessing WMD. Do you believe this was a legitimate reason for the invasion? (all figures in percentages) 22

12 xii TABLES 1.11 Results of an Asahi Shimbun poll asking if America s actions contribute to world peace (all figures in percentages) Yomiuri Shimbun poll: Do you trust America? Do you distrust America? (all figures in percentages) Has your view of America changed over the past three years? (all figures in percentages) Perceptions of SDF roles (multiple answers allowed; all figures in percentages) Support for SDF participation in disaster relief operations overseas (all figures in percentages) Poll Question asking respondents if they agree or disagree with SDF participation in future UN peacekeeping operations (all figures in percentages) Regarding the SDF operations in the future, what areas do you think it should prioritize? (multiple answers allowed; all figures in percentages) Results of a poll conducted by Yomiuri Shimbun asking: Since the enactment of the 1992 UN peacekeeping operations cooperation law, otherwise known as the PKO cooperation law, the SDF has gone overseas to participate in various forms of international cooperation and assistance. If the SDF participates in overseas activities, what sorts of activities do you think they should perform? (multiple answers allowed; all figures in percentages) Results of polls conducted by Asahi Shimbun asking: In the wake of the simultaneous terror attacks in America, the Japanese government enacted legislation and dispatched SDF naval vessels to the Indian Ocean to supply the American military with fuel and provisions. Do you favorably evaluate these Japanese responses? Do you negatively evaluate them? (all figures in percentages) Response to a Nihon Keizai Shimbun poll asking: The government and ruling parties, in order to dispatch the SDF to Iraq for reconstruction assistance, have proposed a new bill. What do you think about this new bill? (all figures in percentages) Results of a poll asking: The Japanese government has hammered out a policy for dispatching the SDF to Iraq. Do you support the SDF s dispatch? Are you opposed? (all figures in percentages) 33

13 TABLES xiii 1.22 Results of a Nihon Keizai Shimbun poll asking: The Iraq Reconstruction Support law has been enacted and the government has a plan to dispatch troops this fall. What do you think about this? (all figures in percentages) December 2003 Nihon Keizai Shimbun poll: View of economy versus Iraq dispatch (all figures in percentages; numbers in brackets denote overall support and opposition rates for the Iraq dispatch) December 2003 Nihon Keizai Shimbun poll: Policy priority versus Iraq dispatch (all figures in percentages) Asahi Shimbun polls: How do you view Koizumi s meeting with Chairman Kim Jung-il in Pyongyang? (all figures in percentages) Major themes of the Pacifist Nation Frame and the Normal Nation Frame regarding the expansion of the SDF s international role 95

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15 Contributors Chijiwa Yasuaki is currently a research fellow at the Graduate School of Law and Political Science, Kyoto University. He was a former visiting research associate at the Sigur Center George Washington University. He received his bachelor s degree in law at Hiroshima University, and his master s and doctorate in international public policy from Osaka University. His field of research includes Japanese political and diplomatic history, and his dissertation was entitled Japan United States Ambassadorial Diplomacy in the Postwar Period: A Comparative Historical Study on Their Roles. He has published several articles, including Insights into Japan U.S. Relations on the Eve of the Iraqi War: Dilemmas over Showing the Flag, Asian Survey, Vol. 45, No. 6 (November December 2005), and others in Japanese language journals such as Kokusai Seiji (International Relations) and Nihon Seiji Kenkyu (Japanese Political Science). Robert D. Eldridge is an associate professor of Japanese political and diplomatic history and U.S. Japan relations at the School of International Public Policy, Osaka University, and a former scholar-in-residence at the headquarters of U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Pacific, at Camp Smith, Hawaii. He received his doctorate in political science from the Graduate School of Law, Kobe University. He has published extensively on the dynamics of the U.S. Japan alliance and the Okinawa issue including The Origins of the Bilateral Okinawa Problem: Okinawa in Postwar U.S.-Japan Relations, (Garland, 2001) and (Osaka University Center for International Security Studies and Policy, 2004). He has recently translated the memoirs of Miyazawa Kiichi (Secret Talks between Tokyo and Washington, Lexington Books, 2007), and is completing a book on the return of Iwo Jima and the Bonin Islands to Japan in Mark Hollstein is an associate professor of political science and Asian studies at Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka, Japan. He received his bachelor s degree in political science from the University of Utah, and his master s degree in journalism from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in New York. Before earning his PhD in political science from the University of Hawaii, he worked in both print and broadcast journalism. This included three years as a news producer at the New York bureau of TV Asahi, one of Japan s five major commercial television networks. He was a recipient of the Crown Prince Akihito Scholarship, which he used to complete

16 xvi CONTRIBUTORS his PhD dissertation fieldwork in Okinawa, Japan. His dissertation was a discourse analysis of how Japanese national newspapers, local Okinawan newspapers, and American newspapers covered protests against the presence of American military bases in Okinawa in the mid-1990s. Paul Midford is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and Sociology, and director of the Japan Program at the Norwegian University for Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. Previously, he taught at Kwansei Gakuin University, Lafayette College, and Kanazawa University. He has published in International Organization, Security Studies, Asian Survey, The Pacific Review, and the International Relations of the Asia-Pacific. His most recent work is a chapter Globalization and National Security: Is Japan Still an Island? Chapter in Jonathan Kirshner, ed., Globalization and National Security (New York: Routledge, 2006), pp He is an associate editor at Japan Forum. Midford earned his PhD in political science from Columbia University. Paul D. Scott is professor of modern Japanese and Chinese history, Asian Studies Program, Kansai Gaidai University. He serves on the Steering Committee of the Alliance for Reform and Democracy, and is a member of Transcend. He is also a board member of the Cambodia Education Project and serves as an advisor to Sam Rainsy. He is the project director for the Asia Democracy Index. His most recent publications include: The Challenges of Democracy in Asia, editor Hirakata City: The Intercultural Research Institute, Kansai Gaidai University, 2005; and the Singapore Election Report Singapore: The Alliance for Reform and Democracy in Asia, 2005 and the Asia Democracy Index 2005 Singapore: Alliance for Reform and Democracy in Asia, In June 2006, Dr. Scott testified before the House Human Rights Caucus and in August that year, joined a democratic mission to Timor Leste. He received his PhD from the University of Virginia and was a graduate research student at the University of Tokyo. Stephanie A. Weston, a resident of Japan for more than twenty years, is a professor of U.S. Japan relations at the University of Fukuoka and Seinan Gakuin. Her most recent publications focus on the U.S. Japan alliance including Alliance in Transition: A New Strategic Partnership, Fukuoka University Law Journal, Vol. 47, No. 2 (September 2002); The Clinton Legacy in Asia, Current Politics and Economies of Asia, Vol. 10, No. 4 (October 2002); and The U.S. Japan Alliance in the New Post Cold War, Japanese Studies, Vol. 24, No. 1 (May 2004). Weston previously was a foreign service officer with the State Department and served as the consular officer in charge of the consular and administrative sections at the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka.

17 Acknowledgments First and foremost, the editors and our fellow contributors wish to thank the Suntory Foundation for providing a grant to support the early stages and bulk of our research. Our study group received a Humanities and Social Science Grant (Jinbun Shakai Kagaku Joseikin) from the Foundation, located in Osaka, Japan, the region where most of the contributors are based, in the summer of 2003 and immediately began our research in an attempt to remedy the gaps in Japanese public opinion research, discussed in the introduction. Paul Midford wishes to thank the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for funding a short-term research fellowship during June August 2007, during which he conducted some final research related to chapters one and four. Second, we would like to thank the various news agencies and polling services for allowing us to use their collected data. We would also like to thank the Japan Data Archive at the Roper Center, the University of Connecticut at Storrs, for providing us access and assisting Paul Midford during his visit to the Archive in March We would especially like to thank Roper Center associate director Lois Timms-Ferrara and archivist Cynthia Teixeira for extending a warm welcome and much assistance. Third, we wish to thank the many knowledgeable individuals from all walks of Japanese society who agreed to be interviewed and otherwise shared their perceptions and insights about their organizations and social trends. Fourth, we would like to thank our respective institutions for permitting us time to travel to conduct our interviews and research. We would also like to thank the Osaka School of International Public Policy especially for providing facilities for our sessions. Fifth, we would like to thank the organizers of the American Political Science Association for allowing us to present our initial findings at the September 2004 conference in Chicago, which happened to be the 100th Annual Meeting. We are grateful to those who attended the session and made comments, including discussant Andrew Oros. Sixth, the contributors would like to thank Kumagai Toshiki, formerly of the U.S. Consulate General, Osaka-Kobe, and currently professor at the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, who provided much insights and advice in the early phases of this project. Seventh, we would like to thank the East-West Center, Washington. Parts of Paul Midford s chapter on mass opinion (chapter one) and the Midford

18 xviii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS and Paul Scott chapter on political parties (chapter four) were originally published in Policy Studies 27 titled Japanese Public Opinion and the War on Terrorism: Implications for Japan s Security Strategy, published by the East-West Center, Washington. For more information on the series and the original publication, please log on to the website www. eastwestcenter washington.org. Finally, we thank Palgrave s senior editor Anthony Toby Wahl for supporting our project throughout and the staff at Palgrave, especially Emily Hue and Kristy Lilas, for seeing the project through to its completion.

19 Abbreviations ANSWER ASDF CBO DPJ GSDF ICT IMFTE IO JANIC JCP JDA LDP MOD MSDF NATO NGDO NGO NPO PDA PILP PKF QUANGO SDF SDPJ UN VNPO WMD Act Now to Stop War and End Racism Air Self-Defense Force Community-Based Organization Democratic Party of Japan Ground Self-Defense Force Information and Communication Technology International Military Tribunal, Far East International Organization Japan NGO Center for International Cooperation Japan Communist Party Japan Defense Agency Liberal Democratic Party Ministry of Defense (Japan) Maritime Self-Defense Force North Atlantic Treaty Organization Nongovernmental Development Organization Nongovernmental Organization Nonprofit Organization Popular Development Agencies Public Interest Legal Persons Peacekeeping Forces Quasi-Autonomous Nongovernmental Organization (or National Governmental Organization) Self-Defense Force Social Democratic Party of Japan United Nations Voluntary Nonprofit Organization Weapons of Mass Destruction