The security predicament of a new state: Philippine policy towards Japan, 1946-1956

• Main Author: Tana, Maria Thaemar C.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2011
• Subjects: Philippines—Foreign relations—Japan; Japan—Foreign relations—Philippines; International Relations
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/6096; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etd_masteral/article/13045/viewcontent/CDTG004980_P.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

The thesis argues that, contrary to the conventional predictions of neocolonialism, the Philippines did not always follow the US lead in its foreign and domestic policy formation and pursued an essentially different agenda. As demonstrated in its relations with Japan and its conduct in the war crimes trials and reparations negotiations, the Philippines had, on several occasions, resisted US pressures and asserted autonomy. The study employs Mohammed Ayoob’s theory of subaltern realism to prove the hypothesis. Subaltern realism posits that the prime determinant of Third World state behavior is its security predicament, which, in turn, is generated by the twin pressures of late state-making and late entry into the system of states. Applying this paradigm to the postwar Philippine situation explains why the Philippines behaved as it did in the postwar international system. The thesis offers a new approach to the study of postwar Philippine-US and Philippine-Japan relations by focusing on security and state-building factors as the primary determinants of Philippine foreign and domestic policy, and by disproving the claim that the Philippines was trapped in a neocolonial relationship with the United States.