ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the reasons for the apparent gap between those Japanese policy-making conceptions of North Korea as a security problem which can be addressed by economic power, as presented in Chapter 3, and the evidence from Chapter 4 which suggests that, even though Japan has the economic capacity to contribute to a resolution of the North Korean problem, much of this power is at present inoperative and Japan in this case does not fully conform to the criterion of a global civilian power. As the theory of economic power and security outlined in Chapter 2 indicates, policy-making will is the essential factor which allows the instrumentalisation of economic capacity in pursuit of economic-based conceptions of security. Hence, the following analysis looks at the nature of the policy-making actors and process in Japan, and examines in detail the internal and external restrictions that have been placed upon Japan's mobilisation of economic power for security ends and its assumption of the role of a global civilian power. In turn, the analysis looks at the extent to which these policy-making restrictions have actually encouraged Japan to devote greater policy-making energies to military conceptions of security.
