ABSTRACT
The perspective I adopt below assumes that the relationship of nationalism to internationalism is indeed a complicated one. Rather than seeing internationalism as the polar opposite of nationalism, I emphasise how nationalism and internationalism have been intricately intertwined throughout the time period we are concerned with, both in Japan and elsewhere. To argue that nationalism is not the opposite of internationalism or that it should not be conceived as a force independent of internationalism requires that the question be pursued with attention to the broader context beyond the national framing of a ‘Japanese’ internationalism. Therefore I will draw from theoretical texts that may seem at first to take the discussion beyond Japan, but I do so only in order to frame a more general perspective on the question. This is especially important in a discussion on nationalism, since studies on nationalism run a risk of merely reinforcing the nationalistic tendency to think in the very categories of exceptionalism that nationalism tends to espouse.
