Risk and Securitization in Japan

This book challenges the prevailing hypothesis of a shift from threat to risk with the end of the Cold War and presents a new explanatory model of risk that can be applied to Japan and elsewhere. It proposes that a full comprehension of the concept of risk can generate new understandings of political processes, and proffers a new perspective on Japanese security discourse, especially the controversy between, on the one hand, early Japanese governments, prime ministers, Diet members, and those who drafted the Japanese proposal for the new constitution, and, on the other hand, intellectuals, peace movement activists, proponents of unarmed neutrality and the US-Japan security treaty.