Focusing on identity and its relationship with foreign policies is always ambitious. Prizel (Reference Prize1998), Berg and Ehin (Reference Berg and Ehin2009), and Warning (Reference Warning2011) are the forerunners. If you are under the influence of the post-modern turn in security studies, then Campbell's (Reference Campbell1998) would be the classical text. However, among all of those texts on identity and foreign policy, what is missing is Asia. It is, in a sense, an interesting phenomenon that an analysis of identity and foreign policy on the most dynamic area of contemporary politics is missing. Hagstrom's edited volume on the relationship between identity and foreign policy in Japan fills this analytical vacuum.

This book is a collection of articles initially published in the Pacific Review in March 2015 as a special issue. It consists of seven articles mainly on Japanese foreign policy. Although their focus is exclusively on Japanese external relations, they inevitably include those of neighbouring countries. Following the introductory chapter (Chapter 1 by Hagstrom and Gustafsson), each contributor took up issues of Japanese foreign policy, including Japan's perception towards Asia (Chapter 2 by Tamaki), the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute (Chapter 3 by Bukh), the North Korean abduction issue (Chapter 4 by Hagstrom and Hanssen), Japan's US/China relations (Chapter 5 by Suzuki), Sino-Japanese relations (Chapter 6 by Gustafsson), and Japan's pacifism (Chapter 7 by Oros).

All articles, except for Chapter 7, are written on the basis of the ‘relational’ approach, in which it is argued that ‘Japan’ or the Japanese ‘self’ is constructed vis-à-vis particular ‘others’. This means that unlike ‘norm constructivism’, which tries to explain how a domestic ‘pacifist’ or ‘anti-militarist’ identity constrains Japan's foreign policy (this approach is taken in Oros’ Chapter 7), the policies Japan practices also profoundly influence Japanese identity. In other words, the contributors generally share the perception that Japan's external relations with its neighbours and the US shape and transform Japaneseness, and the country is indeed in the process of reshaping and transformation.

There are some interesting methodologies that make the edited volume exceptionally thought provoking. One of those is the ‘layered model’, which makes the book coherent in analysing identity resilience and change in contemporary Japanese foreign relations. In the general introduction, the editors develop their argument by introducing a three-layered model of identity construction. The first layer is the most ‘sedimented’ layer in which identities are constructed in hierarchical terms. In this layer, Japan is placed between an ‘inferior’ Asia and a ‘superior’ West. Tamaki's and Oros's chapters address their questions largely in this layer. The middle layer is where ‘more distinctions and demarcations between self and other are negotiated’. In relation to this layer, Gustaffson, for example, makes a stimulating remark that the Japanese ‘rational’ and ‘democratic’ self is constructed, not only in relation to external others such as ‘Asia’, but also to its ‘aggressive Self’ before World War II. The last layer is the least institutionalized. It is on this layer that policies and specific political issues are discussed, and where actors work.

Another interesting methodological development is the introduction of what they call ‘identity entrepreneurs’, who call attention to creative language that ‘names, interprets, and dramatizes’ the issues. They supposedly operate at the least sedimented layer, and promote their version of normative Japanese identity through discursive representation. Their discursive power is indispensable in understanding contemporary Japanese foreign relations. In fact, as the authors argue, while the previously dominant discourses in Japan regarded China and North/South Korea as ‘victims’, this became a salient feature of Japan's perception towards them and they have been transformed into ‘aggressors’ or ‘bullies’ that make irrational demands of Japan. The authors argue that this took place because of the identity entrepreneurs’ promotion of a particular style of discourse. This in turn leads to Japan's self-portrayal as a ‘victim’ in international society.

What intrigues me in this ambitious book is the way identity is employed in analysing Japanese foreign and security policy. However, it is not about identity per se that concerns the authors. As noted above, many contributors in this edited volume presuppose that the Japanese identity is constructed through a contrast in which the ‘self’ is placed against the ‘others’, and this process is the contributors’ focus. In the processes, ‘Japan’ or ‘Japaneseness’ is mainly formulated and narrated out of the relationality with the ‘West’, ‘Asia’, or wartime Japan.

Obviously, the authors consciously or sub-consciously developed their arguments in line with E. H. Carr's formulation of power in his Twenty Years’ Crisis wherein ‘power over opinion’ is equally as important as military and economic power. Similarly, Joseph Nye Jr.’s Soft Power contended that the most important concept of power in the contemporary world is that of ‘soft’ power. These previous works show how important it is to look into the research area outside of military and economic power. In this sense, this edited volume's exclusive focus on identity is not new to the international relations audience. What makes this edited volume distinct from these previously published works is the employment of the relational approach in understanding this dimension of world affairs.

However, the edited volume seems to have reproduced the same problem as the previous articulations of the third dimension. That is about the language that they use. It is possibly because international relations as a discipline has been exclusively a subject of conflict, the third dimension in this literature is regularly depicted as a space in which the causes of conflict reside. In other words, the third dimension only appears to the audience with similar characteristics as the military and economic dimensions. As a result, the entire image of the third dimension is painted with the colour of conflict and competition.

This is particularly regretful in such an interesting attempt that focuses on the long-neglected dimension of world affairs, as it seems that the advantage of widening the theoretical scope is off-set by maintaining narrowly defined identities and emotions in diplomatic relations. The problem of language seems to prevent us from including identity (and its relation to cultural practice) in the context of international relations that gives us a focus not only on the ‘clash’ of different identities but also on the integration and hybridization of them. I presume that it could have been more interesting if they focused on the moment in which the line of demarcation is taken away, and the distinction between the subject and object is blurred.

This problem is closely associated to the pre-set unit of the analysis, namely the nation-state. In fact, all of the articles in this volume seem to accept the perception that emotions are constructed on the basis of the nation-state, or at least constructed within state boundaries. Therefore, Japanese or Chinese identities and the emotions of the Japanese people are used without critically assessing their uniformity and validity in understanding world affairs. Then the question here is about the extent to which identities and emotions are demarcated by state boundaries. How much are these cultural constructions controlled by the concept of the nation-state? To what extent are the ‘Japanese’, in their interpretation of ‘Japanese identity’, actually Japanese?

I really enjoyed the book's arguments and I learnt a great deal. This book is definitely worth reading for those who are engaging in Japanese politics, foreign policies, East Asian international relations, and international relations theory. It should be very much appreciated that they made an exciting attempt to include ‘identity’ in the analysis of contemporary world affairs. As far as we conduct our research on the basis of the prevailing language of international relations, this volume might have reached as far as we can get. The next step is to question the language that we use.