Settlement without Consensus: International Pressure, Domestic Backlash, and the Comfort Women Issue in Japan

What has shaped contemporary discourse on Japan’s comfort women issue? During the last twenty-five years, civic groups in both Japan and South Korea have made significant efforts to publicize the issue within the international community, hoping to narrow the disparity between the position of the international community and that of the Japanese government. Thus far, however, Japan’s official position has shown little change. Why has international pressure on Japan failed? By focusing on the relationship between international pressure and the formation of Japan’s discourse on the comfort women issue, this paper shows how outside pressure led to a domestic backlash among conservatives in Japan, resulting in the failure to institutionalize apologetic discourse within Japanese society. This study will provide important insights on how democratic countries can sometimes resist strong external pressure to conform to international norms.

缺少共识的解决方案：日本在慰安妇问题上面临的国际压力和国内反弹

关键词：慰安妇，国际压力，国内反弹，日本政治，国内话语，日韩关系
何种力量塑造了日本慰安妇问题的当代话语体系？ 在过去二十五年中，日本和韩国都有公民群体致力于为这个问题争取公共关注，希望能缩小国际社会与日本政府的主流立场之间的距离。然而迄今为止，日本的官方立场几乎没有任何改变的迹象。为什么国际社会对日本的压力未能发挥作用？ 本文通过考察在慰安妇问题上国际压力与日本国内话语形成过程之间的关系，表明外部压力是如何导致日本国内保守势力的反弹，使得日本国内社会无法形成道歉性的话语体系制度。本研究对于理解民主国家何以会不时拒绝欲使其遵从国际规范的强大外部压力具有重要意义。
Translated from English by Li Guo