RECALIBRATING RISK AND GOVERNING THE JAPANESE POPULATION

Abstract

This article examines how the Japanese state recalibrates the risks Japanese nationals face when traveling outside of Japan's sovereign territorial boundaries. The author elucidates the measures the state takes to assist its nationals deal with the range of risks they are likely to encounter when traveling to another sovereign state or territory. The article focuses on how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs communicates travel advice and warnings on “risky” destinations and how the state's recalibration of risk aims to inculcate “self-responsibility” as a norm in governing the Japanese population.

Notes

^1. Used hereafter without quotation marks.

^2. Löwenheim 2007.

^3. Leheny 2006.

^4. Hook and Takeda 2007.

^5. Beck 1992.

^6. Löfstedt, Ikeda, and Thompson 2000.

^7. Fukuda, Nakamura, and Takano 2005.

^8. Nishizawa and Renn 2006; Rosenberger 2009; Muringai and Goddard 2011.

^9. Taplin 2005.

^10. Takayama 2007.

^11. Fukuda 2010; Sakai 2006; Seo 2005; Tachibanaki 2004.

^12. Beck 1992, 21.

^13. This paragraph draws on earlier work. For a fuller discussion, see Hook 2010, 143–44.

^14. The word used is kyōi (threat) in the title but kiki (crisis) and sometimes risuku (risk) in the article. In other words, the boundaries of the meaning of the English word “risk” differ from the boundaries of these Japanese words.

^15. Saitō 2006.

^16. Hook 2004, 95.

^17. Japan Tourism Marketing Co. 2012.

^18. Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2010 (Zairyū).

^19. Mathiensen 2006.

^20. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. No date (Tora).

^21. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. No date (Kikin).

^22. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. No date (Videos).

^23. Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2010 (Anzen). The MOFA has also produced a video on how to respond to abduction overseas. See Ministry of Foreign Affairs. No date (Abduction).

^24. Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2011 (Afghanistan).

^25. Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2012 (Korea).

^26. Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2012 (Cambodia).

^27. Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2011 (Madagascar).

^28. Löwenheim 2007.

^29. Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2007.

^30. Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2009.

^31. Saitō 2006, 17.

^32. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. No date (Komattara), 1.

^33. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. No date (Handbook), 1.

^34. Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2002. My emphasis.

^35. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. No date (Starred). Emphasis added.

^36. Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2001.

^37. Löwenheim 2007, 204–5.

^38. Maruyama 1969.

^39. Ibid., 7.

^40. Nakane 1971.

^41. van Wolferen 1990.

^42. Johnson 1990.

^43. Ono 2002, 63. My emphasis.

^44. For details, see Hook and Takeda 2007.

^45. Tanizaki 2006, 25. My emphasis.

^46. Dershowitz 2006, 7.

^47. Hook et al. 2011.

^48. Lummis 2005, 22.

^49. Hook 2005, 3–13.

^50. Secom. No date.

^51. Foucault 1978, 137.

^52. The Daily Yomiuri, 27 January 2003. See www.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2757923.stm; accessed 2 February 2012.

^53. Ibid.

^54. Washington Post, 22 June 2006.