Politics in Asia Series. London; New York: Routledge [an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business], 2019. xi, 200 pp. (Tables, figures.) US$150.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-38-29048-8.
This book is a revised version of a PhD dissertation, submitted, as author Tadashi Anno himself admits, a while ago. In the introduction, however, Anno seeks to locate the emergence of Russia and Japan as great powers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries within one of the most important ongoing debates in international relations (IR)—namely, the rise of non-Western powers such as China and India, and the implications of this rise for the future of the liberal international order.
The book has five main chapters in which the author sets the theoretical framework (chapter 2), outlines the emergence and crisis of the liberal order in the first half of the twentieth century (chapter 3), and explores the rise of Russia and Japan (chapters 4 and 5, respectively). In the concluding chapter, Anno examines the implications of his findings for the contemporary debate regarding the challenges facing the international liberal order.
The theoretical framework outlined in detail in chapter 2 draws on the constructivist school of IR theory. It posits that the international order is defined not only by power relations, but also by a social structure of norms and values, the “cognitive-normative framework” (32). This framework regulates and standardizes states’ behaviour but also locates them within a value-based hierarchy, which is not necessarily accepted by all of the states. As Anno argues, the non-Western states, located low in this hierarchy, have sought to create their national identities is such a way that they seek to enhance their status and self-esteem within the existing normative structure. This framework differs from other constructivist works in its position that state identity is not a pure social construct, but one that is also shaped by “history and present conditions” (25). Anno also emphasizes that national interests are influenced by the strength and credibility of the international order and the state’s position in the order (33).
Chapter 3 outlines the rise of Western international order, its “cognitive-normative framework” defined by notions of civilization, progress, and liberalism, and the crisis that befell it in the aftermath of World War I. Here Anno argues that one important aspect of this crisis was the demise of the legitimacy of the existing normative framework. As a result, elites in non-Western countries sought to reshape their national identities in a way that enabled them to establish their superiority over the so-called West.
Chapters 4 and 5 are the main empirical chapters of this book. Each chapter traces the rise of Russia and Japan vis-à-vis Eurocentric international society and their respective challenges to the international order in the first half of the twentieth century as brought about by the crisis described in chapter 3. The two chapters provide a condensed and somewhat simplified view of the process of modernization in the two countries, their pursuit of status and self-esteem in their interactions with the West, and their revolts against the international order. In the case of Russia, Anno starts with the Byzantine Empire and ends with Stalinism. In the chapter on Japan he depicts the rise of Japan from a pre-modern state on the periphery of the Sinocentric order to the declaration of the Great Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in late 1930s. In line with the theoretical framework developed in chapter 2, Anno argues that the elites in both countries sought to create their respective national identities based on status and self-esteem. This process was shaped by both their “corporate identities,” made of historical experiences, and their interactions with the “cognitive normative framework” of the international liberal order. Both chapters conclude by examining the ideologies of Bolshevism and Japanism as Russia and Japan’s respective responses to the cognitive crisis of the international order.
The analysis of the process of socialization is rather thin, and the transformations brought by it are depicted as almost mechanical or simply resultant of a strategy chosen by the elites. It is unclear why pre-modern historical experience—interactions with the Byzantine Empire and the Mongols in the case of Russia, and with the Sinocentric order in the case of Japan—is seen as the dominant but also static lens through which the elites view their nation and the international order. No doubt, identities are built of pre-existing experiences, but the latter also undergo reinterpretation and reconstruction in the process of socialization. As an example, consider the recent interpretations of the concept “Mongolian yoke” and the whole set of relations between Kievan Rus’ and the Mongols that emerged in Russian historiography.
It is only in the conclusion that the author returns to the question of the present rise of non-Western states and the future of the international order. Anno argues that while it is undergoing a crisis, the international liberal order is hardly on the brink of collapse, as no cognitive framework to replace liberalism has yet appeared.
The main merit of this book lies in its comparison of Russia and Japan. A number of interesting insights can be drawn, especially the comparison between the particularistic ideologies of the two countries. However, the emphasis on certain historical experience as a static and defining frame of identity, and the breadth of the periods examined, make the comparison somewhat unfulfilling. The identities of Russia and Japan, as well as their interactions with the international system, have been examined in numerous works, many of which have deployed the IR constructivist framework. Some of these works are cited in Anno’s book, but unfortunately the arguments made there are not engaged.
Alexander Bukh
Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington