Throughout the post war era Japan has been a “peace loving country”(heiwa kokka). Its constitution eschewed the use of war in international disputes, did not allowed any collective defense effort, forbade nuclear weapons and export of military technology. Yet Japan is still perceived as a threat by most Asian nations. For instance anti-Japanese feelings still impede any security cooperation between Tokyo and Seul, since the South Korean people still considers any form of cooperation with Japan as a “treason of the motherland” .
Neither realism nor liberalism can explain this outcome. In order to make sense of this enduring enemy a different theoretical approach is needed. The key determinant of this permanent state of enmity is the construction of narrative of the wartime era.
During the Cold War the Japanese narrative of the war time era was unapologetic. During the post Cold War era attempts to apologize for Japanese colonialism and war crimes have been accompanied by the rise of an explicitly revisionist narrative.
The proposed paper analyzes the most recent attempts to theorize the role of memory and narrative in interstate relations, particularly regarding Japan’s history problems. Moreover it focuses on a central theoretical and practical issue that remains unsolved: How can the governments can solve the “history problem”? how can they influence the reconstruction and the renegotiation of the collective narrative? In theoretical terms, can agents produce a new narrative and change the intersubjective understanding of collective memory, improving the perception of their country?
Apparently Japanese attempts to apologize in the 1990s and 2000s aimed at producing a narrative of contrition triggered the rise of a revisionist alternative narrative, ultimately undermining the effort to achieve reconciliation between Japan and its neighbors.
