Fear and loathing in Tokyo today
Think Global, Fear Local: Sex, Violence and Anxiety in
Contemporary Japan, by David Leheny. New York: Cornell University
Press, 2006, 230 pp., $ 35 (cloth).
By Jeff Kingston
August 1, 2006
Otto van Bismarck quipped that the crafting of laws, like sausage making, does
not bear watching. Certainly both can be messy and disillusioning, but David
Leheny, in probing the discourse surrounding some recent laws in Japan,
demonstrates just how important and revealing it is to examine the process.
This engaging study examines how domestic anxieties and international norms,
ranging from child abuse and counterterrorism, are instrumentalized by
policymakers to achieve long-standing agendas.
Gaiatsu, foreign pressure, is depicted frequently in terms of the United States
forcing Japan to adopt some policy that Washington thinks best. In the theater
of gaiatsu, Japan reluctantly goes along because it has little choice in the
matter. Leheny shows us how Japanese policymakers artfully manipulate and
orchestrate gaiatsu to force through legislative initiatives that are often
only remotely connected to the putative gaiatsu.
In the domestic policy arena, gaiatsu is the wild card, enabling advocates to
trump opposition. By justifying such initiatives in terms of international
norms and expectations while playing on and seemingly addressing popular
anxieties, political actors have enjoyed great success in advancing their
agenda by stealth. It is the classic magicians' technique of distracting the
audience's attention.
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This sleight of hand is evident in Japan's child sex laws and counterterrorism
initiatives. In both cases, global norms are powerfully linked to local
anxieties. Leheny writes, "I explore how political actors used the fears
bubbling up during Japan's nervous 1990s to justify enhanced powers for the
state. Japan's newly demonstrative schoolgirls and murkily defined foreign
threats (in particular presumptive Chinese criminal and North Korean spies)
became crucial symbols of a nation under attack."
The media focus on enjo kosai (compensated dating often involving prostitution)
encapsulated a deep anxiety about collapsing values. Leheny suggests there was
more smoke than fire, but also shows how perceptions become reality. The media
hype about secondary-school girls selling themselves to afford brand-name
accessories was both a titillating and subversive discourse. There was a
"fundamental fear of the ostentatious sexuality" of teenage women and how their
rejection of traditional values would affect Japan's future.
The need to address international condemnation of Japan concerning lax
attitudes toward Internet child pornography and sex tourism created an
opportunity to pass legislation that curbed enjo kosai. Regardless of whether
there was actually much enjo kosai going on, or indeed whether it represented
anything significant about Japan, public discourse made it into a social
problem requiring some action.
Leheny excels at cutting through the moral posturing and surface appearances to
show how real concerns about child sexploitation among domestic networks of
activists were hijacked by political actors eager to widen state policing
powers. Legislation in 1999 enabled Japan to escape deserved international
opprobrium as the leading source of child pornography, but according to Leheny,
the new policing powers have intruded much more on teenage sexuality than sex
tourism.
International norms represent policy opportunities. How political actors in
Japan select, interpret and amplify these norms shapes legislative agendas. In
linking domestic anxieties to such norms, Japan's conservatives in the ruling
Liberal Democratic Party and bureaucracy have adroitly outmaneuvered opponents
and imposed their objectives under the guise of reform.
The post-9/11 "war on terror" and U.S. pressure on Japan to contribute to this
effort is another example of how domestic actors invoked international
expectations to achieve their long-standing agendas. As Leheny writes,
"Terrorism's nebulous meaning . . . would provide an opportunity to recast a
number of long-debated security plans as essential components of a strategy
against this scourge." Japan's neoconservative hawks are eagerly "chipping away
at the shackles on the use of force to deal with international security" in the
name of solidarity.
Leheny points out that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has adroitly framed the
debate on Japan's global responsibilities not only to bolster Japan's security
profile, but also to influence perceptions and polices toward civil liberties.
The discussion of public discourse regarding young Japanese activists taken
hostage in Iraq is illuminating. He concludes, "In their effort to operate
outside of the state's authority and to critique military engagement . . . the
hostages had undermined Japan's trajectory toward becoming the normal nation to
which many conservatives aspire." And they paid the price for doing so.
"Think Global" is a pioneering and fascinating study that ponders deeply on how
international norms are domesticated, and public anxieties exploited, without
becoming ponderous. Leheny writes well and informally, revealing his
personality, neurotic anxieties and sympathies with considerable charm. For
anyone interested in decoding the mixed motives and diverse legacies of
"reforms" in contemporary Japan, this is essential reading. Moves to transform
the Defense Agency into a full-fledged ministry, and recent debates over the
conspiracy bills lend credence to Leheny's powerful thesis.
Jeff Kingston is director of Asian studies at Temple University, Japan campus.
The Japan Times
