Reluctant Leader, Expectant Followers: Japan and Southeast Asia
| Date | 01 December 1991 |
| Author | Richard Stubbs |
| Published date | 01 December 1991 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209104600404 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
RICHARD
STUBBS
Reluctant
leader,
expectant
followers:
Japan
and
Southeast
Asia
In
one
of
his
short
stories
about
colonial
Burma,
George
Orwell
describes
how
he reluctantly
went
out
and
shot
an
elephant
which
had
gone
'must'
and
was
threatening
to
ravage
the
bazaar.'
He
did
not
do
this
of
his
own
volition
but
rather
because
it
was
clearly
expected
of
him
by
the
threatened
bystanders.
He
was
the
ranking
colonial
official
and
had
a
gun,
so
he
felt
compelled
to
take
on
a
role
with which
he
was
not
very
comfort-
able.
The
argument
advanced
in
this
paper
has
some
parallels
to
the
situation
in
which
Orwell
found
himself.
Over the
last
decade
or
so,
changing
circumstances
in
the
Asia-Pacific
region
in
general,
and
in
Southeast
Asia
in
particular,
have led some
countries
of
that
region,
especially
the members
of
the
Associa-
tion
of
South-East
Asian
Nations
(ASEAN)
-
Brunei,
Indonesia,
Malaysia,
the
Philippines,
Singapore,
and
Thailand
-
to
put
increasing
pressure
on
Japan
to
play
a
greater
leadership
role
in
helping
the
region
solve
its
most
urgent
economic
and
security
problems.
Slowly,
this
pressure
to
adopt
a
high-profile
role
in
Southeast
Asian
affairs
is
persuading
the
Japanese
government
to
change
the
low-key
stance
it
has
maintained
since
the end
of
Associate
Professor
of
Political
Science,
McMaster
University,
Hamilton,
Ontario.
Thanks
are
due
to
Caroline
King,
Kim
Richard
Nossal,
Grace
Skogstad,
and
Geoffrey
Underhill
for
their comments
on
various drafts
of
this
paper
and
to
the
Social
Sciences
and
Humanities
Research
Council
of
Canada and
the
Arts
Research
Board
of
McMaster
University
for
their
support
in
collecting
the
data
presented here.
i
George
Orwell,
The
Pengitin
Essays
of
George
Orwell
(London:
Penguin
1984),
24-31.
International
Journal
xLXvi
auttunn
1991
650
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
the
Second
World
War.
Hence,
just
as
in
Orwell's
story
the
expectations
of
bystanders
pressed
the
reluctant
colonial
official
into playing
a
particular leadership
role
in
solving
their
problem,
so
today
the
expectant
followers in
Southeast
Asia
are
forcing
the
hand
of
the
reluctant
leader,
Japan.
This
view
of
leadership,
which
emphasizes
that
it
is
an
inter-
active
process
driven
as
much
by
the
followers
as
by
the leader,
is
generally
at
odds
with
the
view
that
prevails
among
analysts
of
international
relations,
especially
the
dominant
American
community
of international
relations
scholars.
Since
the
Second
World War
the
way
in
which
leadership
in
the
international
system
of
states
has
been
conceived
has
gone
through
a
number
of
stages.
Initially,
leadership
was
thought of
in
terms
of
the
economic
and
military
capacity
of
the
major
powers
and
was
very
much
tied
to
the
realist school's
preoccupation
with
the
distribution
and
mobilization
of
power
capabilities
among
the
states
of
the
international
system.
2
It
was
argued
that
only
those
countries
with
the
requisite
level
of
military
and economic
resources
could
exercise
leadership
in
the
world.
In
the
196os
and
1970s,
prompted
in
part
by
the
behavioural
revolution,
this
approach
was
taken
one
step
further.
The
emphasis
was
placed
on
the
fact
that
a
leader
is
able to
mobilize
resources
in
such
a
way
as
to
determine
the
behaviour
of
other
states
and
hence
shape
the
international
system.
This
approach
kept
pace
with
the
evolving
assumptions
held
by
the
dominant
realist
school
of
international
relations
which
stressed the
ability
of
some
states
in
the
international
system
to
exert
coercive
power over
other
states
or
to
be
in
a
position
of dominance
over
them.
Essentially,
it
is
this
approach
which
underpins
hegemonic
stability
theory
and the debate
about
the decline
of
American
hegemony.3
2
For
a
recent
example
of
this
approach
see
Paul
Kennedy,
The
Rise
and
Fall
of
the
Great
Powers:
Economic
Change
and
Military
Conflict
from
1500
to
2000
(New
York:
Random House
1987).
3
See,
for
example,
Robert
Gilpin,
War
and
Change
in
World
Politics
(New
York:
Cambridge
University
Press
1981),
who
argues
(p
29)
that
hegemony
is
the
circumstance
in
which
'a
single
powerful state
controls
or
dominates the
lesser
states
in
the
system.'
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