Abstract
This article examines the intensification of nationalist discourses in Japan since the 1990s and their effects at both the domestic and the international level. Although this trend is often interpreted as a psychological mechanism to compensate for the “anxiety” provoked by the economic crisis that started in Japan during this period, it is argued that this process is better understood as the result of recent changes in the more encompassing structural conditions pervading Japanese society. Two of these conditions merit special attention: at the domestic level, Japanese party politics, and at the international level, Japan’s position in the East Asian regional context, particularly in regard to China and South Korea.
Keywords:
Nationalism; Revisionism; Japan; Asia; Regional tensions