The dynamics of anger in protests and security debates in Japan (1948-1960)

Abstract

This thesis asks how and why protesters in Japan expressed anger in a series of popular protests over foreign and security policies. Existing studies have underexplored how anger shapes protest dynamics. Anger is closely associated with moral judgment and a form of practice embedded in social contexts. By building upon theories of emotions and frame, this thesis investigates how different injustice frames provide a rationale for political anger. This thesis examines Japan in the post-World War II and early Cold War context (1948-1960), a period which demonstrates highly conflictual dynamics between the government and civil society actors over security issues. To investigate these dynamics, I divide the historical period into three case studies according to the emergence of new political debates, contestation over injustice frames, and social protests. The first case focuses on social protests surrounding Japan's rearmament in the context of the Korean War (1950-1953). The second case looks at popular opposition to the San Francisco Peace Treaty (1952) and the Japan-US Security Treaty (1952). The third case examines the anti-Japan-US security treaty protests in 1959-1960, which were the largest social movements in Japan's history. I employ the method of emotion discourse analysis to uncover the meanings of articulated anger that emerged in the different contexts of the protests. My thesis contends that the protesters expressed their anger to signal how serious the issues were to them, to identify injustices, and to demand action in these popular protests. The expression of anger allowed actors to denaturalise, negotiate, and challenge the dominant national security discourses. This thesis will offer a deeper understanding of the politics of emotions as well as engage in existing debates on the relationship between social movements and foreign policymaking.