In 1999, responding to international concerns about the sexual
exploitation of children, the Japanese Diet voted unanimously to
ban child prostitution and child pornography. Two years later, in
the wake of 9/11, Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet radically shifted
government counterterrorism policy toward new military solutions,
and away from an earlier emphasis on law enforcement. Although they
seem unrelated, these two policies reveal the unintended
consequences of attempts to enforce international norms at the
national level.
In Think Global, Fear Local, David Leheny posits that when
states abide by international agreements to clamp down on
transnational crime and security concerns, they respond not to an
amorphous international problem but rather to more deeply held and
proximate fears. Although opponents of child prostitution and
pornography were primarily concerned about the victimization of
children in poor nations by wealthy foreigners, the Japanese law
has been largely used to crack down on "compensated dating," in
which middle-class Japanese schoolgirls date and sometimes have sex
with adults. Many Japanese policymakers viewed these girls as
villains, and subsequent legal developments have aimed to constrain
teenage sexual activities as well as to punish predatory
adults.
Likewise, following changes in the country's counterterrorism
policy, some Japanese leaders have redefined a host of other
threats especially from North Korea as "terrorist" menaces
requiring a more robust and active Japanese military. Drawing from
sources as diverse as parliamentary debate records and contemporary
film and literature, Leheny uses these two very different cases to
argue that international norms can serve as political tools,
allowing states to enhance their coercive authority."
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