Australian Digital Theses Program

Thesis Details
Title	From Phoenix to Firehazard: Perceptions of Japanese Leadership in the Asia Pacific, 1960-2000
Author	Stephens, Alexander John
Institution	Flinders University
Date	2006
Abstract	From the middle of the 1970s, an increasing amount of scholarly analysis centred around the concept of leadership in international relations at a time when US post-Second World War leadership began to decline. As a major beneficiary of this decline, Japan assumed the mantle of a replacement in the burgeoning field devoted to the study of changes in the international political economy. A major problem became the way in which the study of leadership in international relations became hostage to the singular example of the United States. The conflation between leadership on the one hand, with US interests and responsibilities on the other, rendered much of the analysis flawed. The growing disparities between the supply of international public goods and narrowly conceived US foreign policy interests undermined the overall study of international leadership. Japan, as the country during the 1980s perceived most likely to supplant the US as the largest and most influential capitalist economy, became the centre of interest in this field. This thesis seeks to more comprehensively measure and analyse Japanese leadership in a more contextual and thorough means through the comparative use of case studies between 1960 and 2000. Through noting the differences in country and regional reactions to Japanese foreign policy, this study demonstrates that leadership perceptions are more often than not driven by national self interest rather than an ideal type of responsible leadership.
Thesis Flinders only	01front.pdf 111.7 Kb 02Chapter_1.pdf 213.3 Kb 03Chapter_2.pdf 305.7 Kb 04Chapter_3.pdf 384.0 Kb 05Chapter_4.pdf 374.7 Kb 06Chapter_5.pdf 428.1 Kb 07Chapter_6.pdf 489.0 Kb 08Chapter_7.pdf 159.6 Kb 09Bibliography.pdf 263.5 Kb