Public Preference on Security Policy under the Weak Commitment of a Patron State

• In Event: Poster Session: Public Opinion and Comparative Politics

Abstract

How does the public react when seeing the patron state weakening its commitment to the alliance? Does the public seek for recovering the alliance tie, establishing a relationship with another patron, or enhancing its own military capability? The conventional view holds that the fear of abandonment by a patron state leads a protégé state to increase the contribution to the alliance, but empirical evidence is scarce because of the limited opportunities to test the theoretical predictions. By taking advantage of a unique setting where the United States seemingly weakens its commitment to the alliance with Japan, we explore the determinants of public preferences on security policy under the weakened commitment of a senior alliance partner.

As the United States demands, the role of Japan's self-defense forces (JSDF) in its cooperation with US troops has gradually expanded over years despite strong public discontent. Previous studies have shown that citizens' concerns about being entrapped into conflicts involving the US constrained Japan's security policy strongly, but they mainly focus on the Cold War era when Japan did not face substantive threats from its neighboring states and had little doubt about the alliance commitment of the US, while the past several decades saw the rise of tensions with China and the decline in US interventionism.

To address the shortcomings of previous studies, using the original online survey data, we show how the fears of abandonment and entrapment exert influence on public preferences on security policies, including increasing the JSDF's involvement in US operations, establishing a friendly relationship with China, and enhancing the military capability. I also examine how Russian aggression in Ukraine and China's opportunistic stance are related to public preferences on security policy choices. This paper aims at contributing to the literature by showing how threat perceptions condition the way in which not only the fear of entrapment but also the fear of abandonment influences the level of public constraint on security policy.

Author

• Takeshi Iida, Doshisha University