The Deployment of the Japan Self-Defense Forces in Iraq and Public Trust Among Different Ideological Groups

Abstract

This paper investigates how public trust in the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) changed after 2004 when it was sent to Iraq in support of the USA. Because Japan’s Constitution clearly prohibits the use of military forces unless for self-defense purposes, public opinion was divided. I find that liberals’ distrust in the JSDF grew after the deployment in Iraq relative to moderates. Somewhat surprisingly, the trust among conservatives also declined relative to moderates after the deployment in Iraq.

Keywords:

• Trust
• Self-defense forces
• Japan
• Iraq

JEL Codes:

• D70
• H56

Notes

1 CNN (2004) online.

2 On a related topic, Torgler (2003) finds that political ideology influence individuals' willingness to go to war.

3 The Japanese General Social Surveys are designed and carried out by the JGSS Research Center at Osaka University of Commerce (Joint Usage/Research Center for Japanese General Social Surveys accredited by Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology), in collaboration with the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo.

4 Though the 2008 JGSS is available, this study does not use it because there were two events that might have affected trust in the JSDF in 2008. In February 2008, there was a collision between the Maritime Self-Defense Force Aegis Destroyer Atago and a small fishing boat took place off the coast of Chiba prefecture, Japan. In the same year, in October, it became known to the public that then-Air Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Gen., Toshio Tamogami, had written an essay in which he sought to justify Japan’s aggression during World War II. Both of the incidents were widely publicized by media. The 2008 JGSS was conducted from October through December. I thank a referee for pointing this out.

5 For a critical discussion of subjective outcomes, see Hamermesh (2004).

6 There are 47 prefectures in Japan. Prefectures are the country’s subnational jurisdictions. Each prefecture is further subdivided into cities and districts, which are further subdivided into towns and villages.

7 This is because interaction effects are more complicated in nonlinear models, such as logit and probit models, than in OLS. Interpreting the coefficients and the statistical significance of interaction terms in nonlinear models can be misleading, while in linear probability models, the interpretation of the coefficient of the interaction between two variables is straightforward (Ai and Norton, 2003). However, in view of the categorical nature of the dependent variable, I also ran ordered probits, which allow the efficient use of ordered qualitative data. Statistical significance of the coefficients of interest does not change.

8 I thank a referee for pointing this out.