Japanese Society and the Politics of the North Korean Threat by Seung Hyok Lee (review)

Seung Hyok Lee's succinct and readable book, Japanese Society and the Politics of the North Korean Threat, analyzes the significant consequences of the abductions issue for Japan's foreign and security policy. The issue has been emotionally charged and has trumped many other concerns vis-è-vis North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK) since September 2002, when Kim Jong-il admitted that agents of his government had abducted Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s. Lee demonstrates the impact of public furor over this affront to Japanese national sovereignty by addressing a clear and focused puzzle: why was Japan's response to North Korea's 2006 missile launches more robust than it had been to the North's 1998 missile test, which actually overflew the Japanese archipelago? His explanation emphasizes how hardening public attitudes toward North Korea, particularly because of the abductions admission, pushed Tokyo to adopt more assertive policies toward North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK) in 2006 and implement its first unilateral sanctions since World War II.

The research design choice to compare the Japanese government's responses to two similarly menacing DPRK missile launches is laudable. Focusing on this comparison enables Lee to limit the number of factors affecting the government's divergent responses. It also results in a neat before-after presentation, which he elaborates over the course of four chronological chapters. Chapter 2 takes the reader up though 2000 and outlines how diverse and diffuse public views on North Korea resulted in limited pressure for robust government response to the 1998 Taepodong-1 launch. The chapter remains brief by ignoring the diverse groups in Japan with an interest in Japan-DPRK relations: the families of ethnic Koreans "repatriated" to the DPRK in the 1960s and 1970s, repatriates' Japanese spouses stuck in North Korea (Nihonjinzuma), and business groups.¹ Chapter 3 traces important changes in the context, as the DPRK sent "suspicious ships" (fushinsen) into Japanese waters and the populist Koizumi Jun'ichirō became prime minister in Japan. Chapter 4 documents the explosion of the abductions issue, which rapidly snuffed out historic achievements enumerated in the Pyongyang Declaration signed during the September 2002 summit meeting of Koizumi and Kim Jong-il. Chapter 5 presents the core argument that societal anger led the Japanese government to impose unilateral sanctions on the DPRK within hours of it launching some seven missiles, including a long-range Taepodong-2, on July 5, 2006. Not only had DPRK provocations become more brazen and publicized, Lee argues, but Japanese societal discourse related to North Korea had grown negative, and Japanese government actors embraced and leveraged societal anger (p. 23). The conclusion offers a helpful dissection of the challenges of pursuing a "resolution" of the abductions issue (pp. 122–24).

Japanese Society and the Politics of the North Korean Threat draws on an impressive array of Japanese-language sources, including editorials in the Asahi and Yomiuri newspapers, books, academic articles, articles in several periodicals, and public opinion polls (summarized on pp. 10–12). As Japan's largest newspapers and leading magazines, these sources make sense and offer right- and left-of-center perspectives. It is not clear, however, how Lee uses the editorials and analytic pieces from monthly magazines. At numerous points, the editorials seem to be sources for facts (for example, in discussing the fushinsen on pp. 30–31, Japan-DPRK negotiations on p. 37, and sanctions bills on p. 98). Moreover, since Lee only sometimes directly quotes such media sources (for example, pp. 53–54, 64–65, 104), the reader can do little but trust Lee's interpretations. Questions remain: does his corpus include all editorials (on North Korea, for instance) in the 1998 to 2006 timeframe? If not, how were the editorials selected? Considering the book's brevity, Lee could have analyzed the sources in greater detail and drawn...