| This thesis analyzes the transformation of Japanese public opinion concerning the nation's security posture during the past decade.;Over the past decade, however, as Japan's security environment has deteriorated with the growth of the putative Soviet threat, and as the United States and China have come to expect greater Japanese defense efforts, the climate of opinion within Japan has gradually shifted in favor of a security posture based on the Mutual Secruity Treaty (MST) and the Self-Defense Forces (SDFs). Opinion polls have come to indicate solid popular approval of maintenance of armament and participation in alliance. "Idealism," a once potent current of thought among intellectuals which rejects the MST-SDF formula, has lost substantial ground to the more pro-defense viewpoints labeled as "realism" and "transcendentalism." Editorial stands of the national press and the attitudes of opposition parties have also testified to the waning influence of idealist thinking.;Domestic constraints on defense endeavors thus eroding, the Japanese Government has in recent years shown signs of departing from the restrictive policies of the National Defense Program Outline.;The public acceptance of armament and alliance, however, does not amount to writing a blank check for the Tokyo Government regarding the levels and modalities of its undertakings in the security field. Especially, the Japanese people are still firmly opposed to alterations in the "institutionalized constraints"; accordingly, proposals for a more positive defense posture would meet stiff resistance if they should involve abandonment or serious modification of those limitations.;Until the early 1970s, the peculiar strength of a neutralist-pacifist outlook among the Japanese people, which arose in large part from the absence of a serious external threat, severely encumbered Tokyo's defense efforts in the context of the alliance with the United States. In particular, such state of domestic opinion gave rise to what we have elected to call the "institutionalized constraints"--limitations deriving from constitutional interpretation, the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, and the Three Principles on Weapons Exports--on the scope of such endeavors. It moreover prepared the condition for the Government's adoption of restrictive military buildup policies in the National Defense Program Outline. |
