Revisiting the reactive state : Japanese foreign policy and beyond

Abstract

States may be considered ‘reactive’ when they are capable of action (as opposed to being ‘autistic’), but oriented toward responding to prior external stimuli rather than making policy directly (Calder, World Politics, July, 1988). Post-World War II Japanese foreign policy has exhibited this ‘reactive’ pattern to a pronounced degree. Over the past decade, nation states generally have grown more reactive, under pressures of globalization . Japan, however, has been an outlier , with a strengthened Prime Ministerial office allowing that country to move in a converse direction to the global trend.