IncrIncrementalism Amid Permanent Obstacles: Japan’s Foreign Policy (2012-2022)

Abstract

The aim is to examine the changes and the continuities of Japan’s foreign policy from 2012 to 2022. The main argument indicates that the reforms implemented since 2012 have had the purpose to legitimize Japan’s pacifist guidelines and practices, and Japan has gradually abandoned self-imposed restrictions regarding the reinterpretation of the Article 9 of its Constitution, the change of arms export rules, and the revision of the initiatives of official development assistance in a more pragmatic and incremental than an ideological and radical way. Many of these reforms build on longer-term pragmatic trends to the Japanese response to changes of the state’s security and economic environment.