Japan and Human Security: A Powerful Discourse or a Useful Coping Mechanism?

The concept of human security has been gaining increasing currency in discussions over global security. Japan is considered a major contributor to both the intellectual mainstreaming of the concept and the implementation of human security through its financial support to the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security, the establishment of the Commission on Human Security, and revision of its Official Development Assistance (ODA) charter to meet human security guidelines. Japan’s pursuit of human security, as well as the status the concept enjoys among policy-makers and academics has led some to describe human security within Japan as a discourse. However, the literature remains ambivalent as to whether human security is a Discourse in the sense that it is hegemonic in the kinds of policy and policy thinking that it allows, or merely an instrumental discourse deployed in the service of Japanese foreign policy. This essay argues that human security should be seen as an instrumental discourse, currently used by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), to help pursue a greater international contribution without aggravating lingering controversies over Japanese militarism, but also, without directly rejecting a future move toward military normalization.