US hegemony and the origins of Japanese nuclear power : the politics of consent

This paper deploys the Gramscian concepts of hegemony and consent in order to explore the process whereby nuclear power was brought to Japan. The core argument is that nuclear power was brought to Japan as a consequence of US hegemony. Rather than a simple manifestation of one state exerting material ‘power over' another, bringing nuclear power to Japan involved a series of compromises worked out within and between state and civil society in both Japan and the USA. Ideologies of nationalism, imperialism and modernity underpinned the process, coalescing in post-war debates about the future trajectory of Japanese society, Japan's Cold War alliance with the USA and the role of nuclear power in both. Consent to nuclear power was secured through the generation of a psychological state in the public mind combining the fear of nuclear attack and the hope of unlimited consumption in a nuclear-fuelled post-modern world

The security predicament of a new state: Philippine policy toward Japan, 1946-1956

The article examines postwar Philippine-Japan relations by using Mohammed Ayoob\u27s theory of subaltern realism. Subaltern realism posits that Third World state behavior is largely influenced in its security predicament by the twin pressures of late state-making and late entry into the system of states. Applying this paradigm to the postwar Philippine situation explains why the Philippines behaved as it did in the postwar international system. This article offers a new approach to the study of postwar Philippine-Japan relations by focusing on security and state-building factors, systemic as well as unit variables, as the primary determinants of Philippine foreign and domestic policy. © 2012 Philippine Political Science Association (PPSA)