ABSTRACT
After having outlined the topic under investigation in the Introduction, let us now turn to how Japan’s foreign policy in general, and its peacekeeping contribution specifically, have been understood. This chapter will outline the traditional approaches to the discipline of IR with two objectives in mind: on the one hand, to provide an understanding of the mainstream IR paradigms, which juxtaposes with recent debates on and surrounding the role of culture, identity and norms in the extant literature; and on the other hand, to comprehend how the discourse of IR has evolved in the late twentieth century and how it has attempted to interpret Japan, international organisations and the practice of peacekeeping. After introducing each mainstream approach in turn, these paradigms will be related to Japan’s peacekeeping policy to demonstrate the extent to which they provide us with a degree of understanding, or fail to furnish us with the necessary new perspectives in the light of the end of the Cold War. Chapter 2 will build on this chapter by introducing and discussing the analysis of norms in IR and with reference to Japan.
