The Field of International Politics

The Expanding Study of the Field of International Politics

In a globalized world, politics are not confined within one country. Even if we are not always aware of it, international politics has already deeply penetrated our daily lives. Japan relies on foreign countries for energy resources and food, and incidents such as U.S.-China tensions or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine can affect Japan’s politics, economy, and security environment thereby changing our way of life. Conversely, there was also the case where Japan’s nuclear accident led Germany to abandon nuclear energy. Rather than merely knowing the superficial aspects of these phenomena, we aim to investigate and understand the mechanisms behind them.

The Expansion of International Political Theory

Originally, International Politics began as a discipline that asked questions about the relationships between sovereign states concerning the prevention of war and the maintenance of peace and order. The issues of war and peace and the role of sovereign states as actors continue to be important. However, in recent years, as security, economic development, environmental issues, human rights, and poverty have become increasingly interconnected and complex, it has become more challenging to differentiate between domestic and international politics. The economic and social conditions, culture and traditions, and religions of a country or region can also cross borders and become political issues with various actors such as corporations, NGOs, and citizens influencing international society. In international politics, there are cases where NGOs collaborate to persuade nations to create treaties regulating landmines or nuclear weapons, and international organizations such as the UN present solutions to human rights issues.

A Perspective on International Politics

International Politics, in contrast to Domestic Politics, is structured differently due to the lack of a unified global government. Although there are global institutions like the UN, they are weaker compared to domestic governments and may not be able to stop violence. Consequently, the scope of issues explicable merely through systems and rules is narrower compared to Domestic Politics necessitating consideration of other various factors. In the field of International Politics, we deal with a wide range of issues and phenomena, including traditional security and diplomatic negotiations between states, regional conflicts, ethnic issues, peacebuilding, democratization, international economics, human rights, and nationalism. To understand these complex issues from multiple angles, we use frameworks from diverse fields such as security studies, political economy, the theory of international institutions, comparative politics, and civil society studies.

Example of Research in the Field – Professor Kazutoshi Suzuki

In a highly globalized modern society, people, goods, money, and information frequently cross borders. In terms of daily housing, food, clothing, education, and entertainment, it is now almost unimaginable not to have any involvement with foreigners, foreign products, foreign investments, and foreign information and services. This is also true in foreign countries. Much of this cross-border interaction is allowed and facilitated by state permissions. Due to the significant authority held by sovereign states, they can, if desired, impose significant restrictions on immigration, export, import, capital movement, and communication with foreign countries. In reality, some countries have rather stringent restrictions. Then, how are these vital restrictions and freedoms, which greatly impact our lives, determined?

For example, Japan is now trading with various countries worldwide under more than 20 Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). In recent years, large multilateral free trade agreements such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) have also come into effect. In fact, Japan was actually quite skeptical about using FTAs until the turn of the century. Since shifting its policy in the early 2000s, Japan has successively concluded agreements and has now reached a point where it can be said to be a world leader. Why did these policy changes occur? By what mechanism was it possible to rapidly conclude agreements one after another? How are local factors such as domestic industries, systems, and politics, as well as global trends and factors, including security as well as economics, involved in this? Although these are complex and significant questions, I hope to unravel them little by little.