8
interests or their parochial bureaucratic interests. Rather the behavior is determined by
idea and shaped beliefs about what actions are legitimate and appropriate in international
relations.
Interest is important to define a state’s behavior, and Ernst Haas argued, “Interests
are not the opposite of ideas or values.”
24
An actor’s sense of self-interest includes the desire to hedge against uncertainty,
to minimize risk. One cannot have a notion of risk without some experience with
choices that turned out to be less than optimal; one’s interests are shaped by one’s
experiences. But one’s satisfaction with an experience is a function of what is
ideally desired, a function of one’s values. Interests cannot be articulated without
values, far from (ideal) values being pitted against (material) interests, interests
are unintelligible without a sense of values-to-be realized. The interests to be
realized by collaborative action are expression of the actors’ values.
25
Thus, we should not ignore the role of ideas in policies since ideas can influence and
shape interests that determine nation’s behaviors. Thus, it is important to “seek to
understand how preferences are formed and knowledge is generated, prior to the exercise
of instrumental rationality.”
26
Also, This study has different assumption about the international system from
structuralists.
27
Structuralists describe the structure of the international system as anarchy.
The absence of a central and overriding authority helps to explain why states come to rely
on power, seeking to maintain or increase their power positions relative to other states.
The condition of anarchy also promotes a lack of trust among states in this environment,
and anarchy contains chaos and conflict.
This study, however, believes the anarchical
system as "unregulated." They argue that the international system may be anarchical, but
remains a society that is not characterized by chaos and conflicts.
28
Moreover, Martha
Finnemore emphasizes that "we cannot understand what states want without
understanding the international social structure of which they are a part [because] states
are embedded in dense networks of transnational and international social relations that
shape their perceptions of the world and their role in the world."
29
Epistemic communities, networks of knowledge-based experts, can also help
states identify their interests.
30
Epistemic communities created by “professionals … who
share a common causal model and a common set of political values”
31
can exist not only
in the international community but also in domestic political institutions and
organizations. This study argues that Japan had a network of knowledge-based
24
Ernst Haas, When Knowledge is Power (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990), 2.
25
Ibid., 2.
26
Peter Katzenstein, Robert Keohane, and Stephen Krasner, “International Organization and the Study of
World Politics”, International Organization 52:4 (Autumn, 1998), 681.
27
Alexander, Wendt, "The Agent-Structure Problem" International Organization, 41:3 (Summer 1987).
28
Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977).
29
Finnemore, National Interests in International Society, 2.
30
Peter Haas, "Knowledge, Power, and International Policy Coordination" in International Organization
46, 1.
31
Ernst Haas, When Knowledge Is Power, 41. Kathryn Sikkink makes a similar argument about the
professionals can influence policy outcomes. Ideas and Institutions, 245.
Convention