Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T19:38:33.001Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Roundtable Discussion of Jennifer Lind'S Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2016

Charles L. Glaser ,
Thomas U. Berger ,
Mike M. Mochizuki  and
Jennifer Lind
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

How can Japan put its past behind? Scholars, journalists, and activists frequently argue that Japan cannot solve its “history problem” unless it follows West Germany's lead in offering contrition for World War II violence. Into this debate, Jennifer Lind's Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics offers an original and provocative contribution. Lind argues that while countries should acknowledge past atrocities, frequent public apologies can be domestically polarizing and diplomatically counterproductive. Sorry States outlines a theory of remembrance and threat perception and tests it in a comparative study of Japanese-South Korean and Franco-German relations after World War II. Its methods, data, and findings will interest not only East Asianists, but also scholars of international reconciliation and security studies more broadly. This roundtable presents three critical essays in addition to a response by the author. They discuss the mechanisms through which historical memory influences perceptions of threat, the relative weight of ideational versus material factors in threat perception, and whether changes in international norms and economic interdependence may increasingly pressure countries to confront past violence.

Keywords

apologymemoryhistoryreconciliationthreat perceptionJapanKoreaGermanyWorld War II
Type
Roundtable
Information
Journal of East Asian Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , December 2009 , pp. 337 - 368
Copyright
Copyright © East Asia Institute 

References

Art, David. 2006. The Politics of the Nazi Past in Germany and Austria. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barkan, Elazar. 2000. The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Social Injustices. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Brooks, Stephen G. 1997. “Dueling Realisms.” International Organization 51, 3: 445–477.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cha, Victor D. 1999. Alignment Despite Antagonism: The US-Korea-Japan Security Triangle. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Dwyer, Susan. 1999. “Reconciliation for Realists.” Ethics and International Affairs 13: 81–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edelstein, David M. 2002. “Managing Uncertainty: Beliefs About Intentions and the Rise of Great Powers.” Security Studies 12, 2: 1–40.Google Scholar
Falkowski, Mateuz, and Popko, Agnieszka. 2007. The Germans About Poland and the Poles 2000–2006. Warsaw: Institute for Public Affairs. Available at www.isp.org.pl/?v=page&id=285&1n=eng (accessed July 19, 2007).Google Scholar
Gibney, Mark, Howard-Hassman, Rhoda E., Coicaud, Jean-Marc, and Steiner, Niklaus, eds. 2008. The Age of Apology: Facing Up to the Past. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Glaser, Charles L. 1994–1995. “Realists as Optimists: Cooperation as Self-Help.” International Security 19, 3: 50–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glaser, Charles L. Forthcoming 2010. Theory of Rational International Politics. Prince ton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Haas, Mark. 2005. The Ideological Origins of Great Power Politics, 1789–1989. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
He, Yinan. 2007. “Remembering and Forgetting the War: Elite Mythmaking, Mass Reaction, and Sino-Japanese Relations, 1950–2006.” History and Memory 19, 2: 43–74.Google Scholar
He, Yinan. 2009. The Search for Reconciliation: Sino-Japanese and German-Polish Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hunt, Lynn. 2008. Inventing Human Rights: A History. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Kansteiner, Wulf. 2006. “Losing the War, Winning the Memory Battle: The Legacy of Nazism, World War II, and the Holocaust in the Federal Republic of Germany.” In The Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe , ed. Lebow, Richard Ned, Kansteiner, Wulf, and Fogu, Claudio. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Keck, Margaret, and Sikkink, Kathryn. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Paul M. 1970. “The Decline of Nationalistic History in the West, 1900–1970.” Journal of Contemporary History 8, 1: 77–100.Google Scholar
Keohane, Robert O., and Nye, Joseph S.. 1977. Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition. Boston: Little Brown.Google Scholar
Knischewski, Gerd, and Spittler, Ulla. 1997. “Memories of the Second World War and National Identity in Germany.” In War and Memory in the Twentieth Century , ed. Evans, Martin and Lunn, Ken. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Kydd, Andrew H. 1997. “Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Why Security Seekers Do Not Fight Each Other.” Security Studies 7, 1: 115–154.Google Scholar
Kydd, Andrew H. 2005. Trust and Mistrust in International Relations. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lauren, Paul Gordon. 2003. The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Lind, Jennifer. 2008a. “Memory, Apology, and International Reconciliation.” Asia-Pacific Journal 47, 7: 6.Google Scholar
Kydd, Andrew H. 2008b. Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kydd, Andrew H. 2009. “The Perils of Apology: What Japan Shouldn't Learn From Germany.” Foreign Affairs 88, 3: 132–146.Google Scholar
Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Midford, Paul. 2002. “The Logic of Reassurance and Japan's Grand Strategy.” Security Studies 11, 3: 1–43.Google Scholar
Nobles, Melissa. 2008. The Politics of Official Apologies. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
O'Neill, Barry. 1999. Honor, Symbols, and War. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Owen, John M. IV. 2001–2002. “Transnational Liberalism and U.S. Primacy.” International Security 26, 3: 117–152.Google Scholar
Pick, Hella. 2000. Guilty Victim: Austria from the Holocaust to Haider. London: I. B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Risse, Thomas, Ropp, Stephen C., and Sikkink, Kathryn, eds. 1999. The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ron, James, and Thoms, Oskar N. T.. 2007. “Do Human Rights Violations Cause Internal Conflict?” Human Rights Quarterly 29, 3: 674–705.Google Scholar
Schultz, Kenneth A. 1998. “Domestic Opposition and Signaling in International Crises.” American Political Science Review 92, 4: 829–844.Google Scholar
Snyder, Jack, and Vinjamuri, Leslie J.. 2003. “Trials and Errors: Principal and Pragmatism in Strategies of International Justice.” International Security 28, 3: 5–44.Google Scholar
Torpey, John, ed. 2003. Politics and the Past. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Walt, Stephen. 1987. The Origins of Alliances. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Waltz, Kenneth N. 1979. Theory of International Politics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar