In the post-war period, Japan has certainly not been a stranger to multilateral diplomacy, even though its contributions to the United Nations have largely been limited to giving generous financial aid and less on major policy-making contributions. But one major policy proposal it has been pushing and pursuing throughout has been the goal of UN Security Council reform: more precisely, the goal of securing a Permanent Seat on the Security Council for itself.

In pursuit of this goal, Japan has mounted many different campaigns. This essay examines the most recent campaign, looks at previous campaigns, and formulates potential answers (using a constructivist identity framework) to the questions of why Japan always returns to this demand for a Permanent UNSC Seat and what might be motivating it.

In September of 2014, Japan launched its latest campaign to reform the United Nations in such a way that the country can obtain a permanent seat of its own. Were the bid to succeed, then no longer would the United States, Russia, France, Britain and China be the sole owners of such a seat, which has been the unchanging and inflexible balance of power (especially of veto power) at the UN for 43 years. After all, the last real change to the Permanent Security Council seats was in 1971, when Resolution 2758 handed Taiwan’s Permanent Seat over to the People’s Republic of China.

It was revealed that the group of countries with similar aspirations as Japan – India, Brazil, Germany and Japan – and which is sometimes referred to as the “G4”, had their representatives meet at the Brazilian Consulate in New York on September 25 to come up with a joint game plan. They issued a statement which called on the U.N. to reform the UNSC in 2015, the year which also marks the 70th anniversary of the United Nations’ founding. The “G4” statement called for expanding the number of permanent UNSC members from 5 to 11, and for raising the total number of Security Council members from 15 to 25.

This time around, the reformist side can argue that the UNSC in its current form has failed to effectively deal with the conflicts in the Ukraine, Syria and Palestine. This energizes their argument in a way that we haven’t seen since 2005, when many countries were expressing their resentment over the fallout from the Iraq War. But in the end the reform plans for the UNSC were not even put to a vote. While there was the usual reluctance on the part of permanent UNSC members to tinker with a system in which they get to monopolize veto power, the lack of a vote was also because China voiced strong and specific opposition to Japan earning a permanent seat.

Such revisions to the U.N. Charter need to be backed by two-thirds majority among the 129 U.N. members. To get there, the government of Shinzō Abe on the support of many African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. But all five Permanent UNSC members still need to ratify the revision in order for it to take effect. It seems likely that the main obstacle to the current Japanese campaign will once again be Chinese opposition. So far, China has never been able to abandon the fundamental idea that only the countries which were victorious in World War Two are allowed to have permanent membership. Secondly, relations between Japan and China have suffered from tensions related to the Senkaku Islands and to Abe’s visit in 2013 to Yasukuni Shrine, which honors 14 Class-A war criminals.

Such is the state of the current campaign. As mentioned, this essay wants to examine the larger questions of why Japan always returns to this demand for a Permanent UNSC Seat, and concurrently to examine how it has gone about accomplishing this in the past. It goes without saying that there are many potential approaches to analyzing this issue. The theoretical approach that I have always found to be the most fresh and most enlightening, is by defining the issue as an identity issue and to examine it using the analytical tools and theories of (constructivist) identity research. The approach of Alexander Wendt, which he sets out in his “Social Theory of International Politics” (1999), involves an elaborate identity framework, in which nation-states have multiple identities, with all these identities existing alongside each another and constantly competing for dominance, as part of an identity hierarchy. Wendt uses symbolic interactionist theory to arrive at four different categories of identity: 1) Personal or Corporate Identities, 2) Type Identities, 3) Role Identities, and 4) Collective Identities. For the purpose of this essay, the latter category of Collective Identities is the most relevant and useful.

Put simply, a “collective identity” is the most social kind of identity; the type of identity that is the most closely tied to the social interactions of states, namely, to their collective impulse to form a community of nation-states, with every member identifying with a shared set of values or interests. In international politics, a collective identity tends to be highly focused on a single political issue. (One example of a collective identity is therefore “altruism” as an identity, because altruism depends both on other members being the object of your own charitable attitudes, and because the interests at stake in altruism are the collective interests of the entire social group.)

Looked at in this way, the question becomes: is Japan’s longstanding and continuing quest for a Permanent Seat not the expression of a specific Collective Identity, and a firmly established one at that? As mentioned, collective identities tend to be very much focused on a singular political issue; obviously the issue in this case would be the issue of Security Council reform. It is an issue which clearly is closely related to the issue of Japan’s international status, and by extension to the country’s self-perception, self-understanding and self-regard. And because of Japan’s background as a significant member of the League of Nations, it comes attached with a long and sensitive history, which this essay will now turn to.

The ambition on the part of Japan to attain a permanent seat has been commonly known among UN members since Japan joined the UN in 1956. Japan’s rapid economic growth during the 60s provided additional fuel to this ambition, with Prime Minister Ikeda floating ideas such creating a Minister for UN Affairs as support for the bid. (Pan, 2006, p. 293).

Outside of the work of Japanese scholars, the scholar Reinhard Drifte has written at great length and authoritatively on the issue (see Drifte, 2000). Drifte intricately charts the course of the issue in Japanese foreign relations, beginning with the period between the 1960’s and 1980’s, a time when Cold War tensions and the tight bilateral relationship with the US did not allow for enough political space in which to launch a major Japanese bid for a permanent Security seat, apart from the small movements mentioned earlier. However, the issue was – discreetly and at a low level – kept alive during this period by bureaucrats and a few politicians, especially by foreign minister Aichi Kiichi and Prime Minister Nakasone, who were the most enthusiastic proponents of the idea but could not devote significant time to it (ibid., p.51).

Drifte sees the bid as making greater progress during the period immediately after the Cold War, when Japan develops a more proactive multilateral policy – albeit one that remains concentrated on making economic contributions to the UN and less so on providing political ideas (ibid., p.110). Japan’s active involvement in helping to resolve the war in Cambodia revealed a more activist Japanese UN delegation, showing that Japan can be play an instrumental role in forging a consensus in the Security Council. But paradoxically, Drifte writes, precisely because it is mindful of its own ambitions to obtain a permanent seat, it still acts more as a follower than as a leader – specifically, a follower of American directions, since America has the power to block the bid if it doesn’t like Japan’s more individualistic stance.

At this point in the history of the quest for a Permanent Seat, the comparison between Japan and Germany as actors at the United Nations becomes an especially informative one, because of their similarities but also pertinent differences: both countries have in common that they have to some extent mounted campaigns for obtaining a permanent seat. Drifte seeks to explain the Japanese ambition by delving into the early 20th century past, linking it to nostalgia for the status Japan once possessed as a member of the League of Nations.

What is certain is that from 1990 onwards, both Japan and Germany began to see the Security Council as a potential vehicle for asserting themselves more proactively on the international stage, but at the same time both are initially hesitant to openly demand a Permanent Seat (see Bouratonis, 2005, p. 36). This initial hesitation can be explained in a variety of ways. Firstly, the First Gulf War by itself provided new opportunities for Germany and Japan to expand their role within the United Nations, in ways that do not involve demanding a Permanent Seat. Secondly, the domestic political debate about the active participation in the Gulf War unfolded in ways that were not encouraging to Japanese policymakers: the Japanese public’s pacifist attitudes were on full display. Thirdly, on the Security Council itself both countries adopted a ‘wait and see’ attitude, as they were not confident yet in their ability to predict the reactions of the other members to demands for fundamental reform (ibid., p. 37).

Japan’s bid for a permanent seat has been an integral component of the broader debate about Security Council. Drifte characterizes Japan’s performance in this debate as “showing great interest and impatience with its slow progress, but, compared to Germany, its contribution has been less concrete and constructive”. Drifte explains Japan’s cautious approach by pointing at its continued dependency on “backstage bilateral operations”. Japan’s main rationale for getting a permanent seat remains a call for justice and fairness, in light of Japan’s sizable economic contributions to a UN which is always short of funding.

In the modern era, the desire for a Permanent seat may be tied to the growing apprehension and alienation which Japan experiences towards the US and the latter’s slowly declining superpower status. In this context, Japanese policy-makers themselves like to publically advance the possibility of obtaining a Permanent Seat in the Security Council, using this prospect as an instrument to martial a greater section of the public behind their official policy of “international contribution” (kokusai koken 国際貢献).

Now that we have examined both the present campaign and the past campaigns, what is the significance of these campaigns in terms of the Japanese identity? Specifically, what is their significance in terms of the “collective identities” as Alexander Wendt has defined them?

Of all the ‘social milieus’ of which Japan find itself a member, and which have been considered in this essay so far, the milieu of the UN constitutes the most ‘social’, or socialized, of them all. If any institution can assumed to be socially constructed, it is the UN. The wager of Wendt’s identity framework is that “the structures of human association are determined primarily by shared ideas rather than material forces” and this idea can potentially find its fullest application in this arena.

Constructivist writers frequently contend that, while states can influence the course of international institutions like the UN, those institutions are also able to exert influence on foreign policy behavior. (see Nabers, 2003, p. 113). In the history of the above campaigns, we find instances of both. On the one hand, Japan has been able to shape the evolution of the UN: it has worked to keep nuclear disarmament on the UN agenda. It has pushed for organizational reform of the UN, alongside other countries. It has tried to safeguard the reputation of the UN against being damaged by the actions of its more powerful members. It has tried to bring about reconciliation between US and the UN, during those periods when the US adopted a more critical, strongly anti-UN stance. The Japanese tendency to de-emphasize military power and emphasize Soft Power has influenced the thinking and behavior of fellow members.

But conversely, we have seen that being a member of the UN has also shaped the behavior of Japan. Being a member has caused Japan to consider, and sometimes reconsider, the value of multilateralism. Being a member has to some extent pushed Japanese policymakers away from their reliance on bilateralism towards greater multilateralism. It has caused Japanese diplomats to make ‘UN-centrism‘ – and all the values, identities, engagements and collective projects that this entails – a cornerstone of their entire diplomatic edifice.

Moreover, the statements of Japanese representatives at the UN tend to be dominated by the language of status and prestige, as we have seen above and in particular when it comes to the case of the Japanese quest for a Permanent Seat. “Status and prestige” are often singled out as a type of language which is significant for the social constructivist approach (see Klotz and Lynch, 2007). If, as Drifte claims, this desire for greater status is motivated by nostalgia for the status Japan once possessed as a member of the League of Nations, then the language of status and prestige is directly indicative of an identity that was formed around those ideas; an identity that was formed in the early 20th century.

In conclusion, we can discern here inside the Japanese thinking and discourse a specific “collective identity”, asAlexander Wendt has defined them. It is a collective identity that I would like to give the title of “Aspiring to Higher (international) Status and/or being a UN Reform Leader”. It is an identity that is often suspected by other Eastasian nations as being animated by old nationalist or imperialist dreams. It is an identity which addresses the ambition (which has never been absent but frequently suppressed in the post-war era) of Japan taking its self-perceived “rightful place” among the most powerful nations of the world, and wielding influence and authority commensurate with that of a preeminent nation.

In short, the constructivist answer to the questions of why Japan always returns to this demand for a Permanent UNSC Seat, and what might be motivating this demand, is that within the entirety of what might be called the identity of the nation-state Japan, a specific “collective identity” has been formed. And the quest for a Permanent Seat is the most essential, necessary expression of this identity, which has been replicating itself across the 20th and 21st centuries, as a vital part of Japan’s discourse and as an essential element in the way that Japan acts and interacts at the United Nations. From the vantage point of a constructivist theoretical framework, Japan’s ongoing bid for a Permanent UNSC Seat can be analysed as the expression of one of the Collective Identities of the Japanese nation-state.