The sovereign state and its conformists: Japan's entrance into international society

This study examines the socialization of Japan into the European state system as an aspect of expansion and institutionalization of the European international system. It asks: (1) What explains Japan's rapid socialization into the European sovereign state system in the late nineteenth century? (2) How can Japan's entry into the European state system be placed in the larger map of institutionalization of the European state system? The central puzzle that runs through the study is the apparently extraordinary degree of conformity that Japan demonstrated in accommodating itself to Western norms of international relations within a very short period of time. In exploring this puzzle, I focus on the interactions between systemic constraints from the international system and the choices that the political leaders made, identifying the logics of the persistence of the Westphalian system and of the conformity of newcomer states.; Japan's conformity to international norms can be explained by a number of factors; first, by the existence of functional equivalents, or domestic institutions culturally different from the West but similar as an institutional mechanism; second, by the systemic imperative of the nineteenth-century international system that defined membership criteria of international society based on positive international law; third, by the interest political leaders found in forging a congruence between domestic logic and systemic constraints, plus their skill in manipulation.; The international norms of different historical periods define the problematique of statehood. How to respond to the historical contingency depends on the attributes of a country, including its physical preparedness for nation-building and its leaders' capacity. Then, a newcomer's entrance generates dynamics in the existing international society as an institution that contribute to its adaptability and autonomy. In fact, international norms and the Western concept of sovereignty have been reconstituted and reshaped through the entrance of newcomers. The socialization of newcomer states and the institutionalization of the international system are, in this sense, synchronic phenomena.