How can the strategic interests of the United States be reconciled with the sovereignty of the nations that host its overseas bases? What of the men and women who live in the communities that surround these bases, whose daily lives are deeply impacted by the actions of the soldiers and civilians who execute U.S. policy? How can they make their voices heard? How can they influence their own government and that of the United States to respond to their concerns? In her thoughtful and precise study of protest against U.S. military bases in Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines, Yuko Kawato provides a detailed and valuable history of the social moments in postwar Asia that have taken up these challenges. However, the strength of her project is its perceptive analysis of the tactics employed by protesters, and their successes and failures in influencing policymakers to take action on their behalf.
In her introduction, Kawato situates her analysis in the context of contemporary work in international relations, security studies, and social psychology. Her argument, however, can best be seen as a theory of communicative practice. In order for a protest to be effective—that is to say persuasive—it must be understood by all parties to the argument. Protestors and policymakers must operate within a shared field of knowledge and belief, and the normative argument presented by the protesters must be clearly intelligible against this shared field. Among the types of normative protests that Kawato explores are threats to the sovereignty of host nations, damage to the environment, violations of human rights, breaches of policy regarding nuclear weapons, and the issues of war and militarism. Protesters must also be perceived as credible by policymakers, regardless of the conflict that surrounds any protest.
At the same time, even when these conditions are met, protests often fail to accomplish their objectives. Contested issues must be evaluated by domestic institutions and their representatives as well as by U.S. policymakers, each with their own interests and objectives. Sometimes protests are rejected entirely. Sometimes they accomplish only limited objectives: symbolic concessions, as Kawato describes them. Here, symbolic denotes compensatory, allowing protestors to receive some measure of success and prestige. Of course, in any communicative acts such as these, the outcomes are always both symbolic and material. However, it is crucial to emphasize this in order to understand the implications of outright defeat and marginal success. Total rejection represents the negative valuation of claim and claimant, enacting once again the asymmetry of power between protestors and the state. This outcome is equally symbolic, without the niceties of any concession.
The body of the text is organized around a series of case studies that inspired Kawato's interpretation and enable her to explicate it for her readers. While the failures that Kawato analyzes are, in many ways, quite predictable, her interpretive model helps the reader to contextualize that failure. U.S. authorities characterize Okinawan protestors as communist ideologues or unsophisticated natives; South Korean policymakers reject activists as North Korean catspaws or greedy profiteers. Military and civilian authorities dismiss anti-war or anti-militarist rhetoric out of hand. Even when political leaders find arguments convincing, reforms are blunted or overruled by entrenched bureaucrats.
The ways in which Kawato interprets conjunctures in which persuasion occurs and changes are effected are significant. Newly empowered by the 1987 Constitution, and compelled by decades of martial law, American colonialism, and military occupation, senators in the Philippines take decisive action to expel U.S. bases. Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama, perhaps liberated from the burden of LDP commitments and ideology, allows himself to be convinced of the validity of Okinawan claims. Senator Joseph E. Estrada, a political novice largely unfamiliar with U.S. military base issues, gains the knowledge that makes him receptive to anti-base arguments and becomes a leading figure in the movement against the bases.
Kawato concludes with a series of recommendations to policymakers and activists. Drawing on her own analytic model, she suggests ways in which these antagonistic parties can effectively reach a consensus. There is much here for participants in social movements, politicians, and military and civilian authorities to learn.
At the same time, it is protestors who invariably bear the burden of compromise in order to reach consensus. While many of the social movements with which I am familiar are committed to achieving the objectives of their protests, they are also determined to transform the fields of knowledge and belief in which consensus always favors those in power. It is a politics of dissensus that they advocate, one that seeks to create new ways of being and doing in the world, practices that lay the groundwork for a more just society. For them, the strategic sacrifices required to achieve consensus might outweigh limited tactical gains.
With Protests Against U.S. Military Base Policy in Asia, Yuko Kawato has crafted a complex and compelling study of the modes of persuasion that characterize postwar anti-base protests. It can be read provocatively against the work of scholars such as David Vine and Catherine Lutz, and would provide a sophisticated introduction to the more regionally specific work of ethnographers such as Masamichi Inoue and Sealing Cheng. The depth and subtlety of her argument will be of interest to political scientists and policymakers; her clear and concise prose make it accessible to students and general readers alike.
