Linus Hagström

• Professor
• Professor at Swedish Defence University

Detta är en kulturartikel som är en del av Aftonbladets opinionsjournalistik. Publicerad 2025-02-25 Den internationella politiken genomgår just nu omvälvande förändringar, men möjligen är vi på väg mot vad som snarare kan betecknas som ett historiskt normaltillstånd. Enligt realistisk teori kännetecknas internationell politik av anarki, i betydelse...

Why, despite its longstanding identity as a non-aligned country, did Sweden apply for NATO membership in May 2022? Did this decision not fundamentally challenge Swedish ontological security? Conversely, could a desire to maintain ontological security somehow explain the radical policy shift? This article conceptualises the state’s self in terms of...

Är Sverige säkert nu, efter inträdet i Nato? För att kunna besvara den frågan behöver andra frågor först diskuteras: Vad är säkerhet och osäkerhet? Vad, vem eller vilka ska säkerhetspolitiken egentligen värna? Och varför tillåts vissa att tala om säkerhetspolitik men inte andra? I den här antologin medverkar ett tjugotal forskare i statsvetenskap,...

This article examines the extent to which or how self-identified great powers resort to military aggression following events that challenge their sense of greatness. It problematises the prevalent notion that great powers and events exist and have effects independently of the narratives that constitute them. The article does this by engaging with O...

Linus Hagström om Socialdemokraterna och Nato 00

Research problems are crucial in the sense that they provide new research with purpose and justification. So why, despite the abundance of guidance available from an extensive methods literature, do graduate students often struggle to develop compelling research problems? This article argues that the process of developing research problems epitomis...

Understanding defense through the context of Aikido

Linus Hagström om det kollektiva väst https://www.aftonbladet.se/kultur/a/KnW2yG/linus-hagstrom-om-det-kollektiva-vast 1/4 ANNONS Kultur Vilka är med i "väst" och den fria världen? Alla använder samma begrepp men vad det betyder är otydligt Av: Linus Hagström PUBLICERAD: I DAG 05.00 Detta är en kulturartikel som är en del av Aftonbladets opinionsjo...

This essay takes literature laureate Kenzaburo Oe’s Nobel lecture from 1994, Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself, as a point of departure for thinking about Japan, the ambiguous and how the already fragile and complex narrator that is I has evolved ambiguously over time in relation to a similarly ambiguous and changing imagination of Japan. Based on a...

There is an emerging debate about the role and importance of women in right-wing nationalist movements. Drawing on research that highlights the need to study such women as active and complex political agents, this article examines a phenomenon that has previously received little attention-the activism of female Japanese nationalists. We approach th...

‘Othering’ – the view or treatment of another person or group as intrinsically different from and alien to oneself – is a central concept in the International Relations literature on identity construction. It is often portrayed as a fairly singular and predominantly negative form of self/Other differentiation. During the first months of the COVID-1...

What explains Japan’s security policy change in recent decades? Heeding the ‘emotional turn’ in International Relations, this article applies a resentment-based framework, which defines resentment as a long-lasting form of anger and the product of status dissatisfaction. Leveraging interviews with 18 conservative Japanese lawmakers and senior offic...

Att gå med i Nato har framställts som en närmast teknokratisk och riskfri manöver. Det är ett exempel på hur säkerhetspolitikens inneboende osäkerhet underskattas eller döljs. Oförmågan att leva med osäkerhet bidrar till att vi just nu håller på att ge upp den strategiskt vaga linje som tidigare bidragit till avspänning.

In the final analysis, is the security dilemma inescapable? Or can the protagonists in world politics learn to live with never-ending insecurities and the risk of attack without producing precisely the outcomes that they wish to avoid? This article explores this fundamental problem for International Relations theory by performing a thought experime...

One of the mysteries in contemporary world politics is why in recent years Australia has been leading the world in its hawkish approach to China, its largest trading partner. More than most of its allies, the Australian government seems to regard the China emergency — fuelled by threat perceptions ranging from foreign influence operations to econom...

Recent research has explored how the Sino-American narrative struggle around COVID-19 might affect power shift dynamics and world order. An underlying assumption is that states craft strategic narratives in attempts to gain international support for their understandings of reality. This article evaluates such claims taking a mixed-methods approach....

The existing research on Japanese security focuses mainly on the nation state and conceives of male elites as the key bearers of relevant knowledge about the phenomenon. This article problematizes these biases by zeroing in on women’s everyday-oriented perspectives, which fall outside the scope of security politics as traditionally conceived. More...

Why do self-representations of weakness pervade public discourse in self-identified great powers? Moreover, why do they intersect with self-representations of greatness? Do such narrative instability, inconsistency, and incoherence simply indicate that great powers are ontologically insecure? This article advances a theoretical explanation that is...

This article draws on identity construction, emotions and a notion of productive power to address the question of why Swedish policymakers and public opinion are becoming increasingly supportive of NATO membership. It contributes theoretically by arguing that such textual phenomena intertwine with 'disciplinary power', which operates on the bodies...

Periods of mutual enmity in US-North Korean relations are typically interrupted by more conciliatory gestures. How can the many twists and turns in this relationship be explained and hopefully overcome so that more long-lasting détente is accomplished? Drawing eclectically on realism and constructivism, we conclude that a nuclear deal should addres...

Soft power and hard power are conceptualised in International Relations as empirically and normatively dichotomous, and practically opposite – one intangible, attractive, and legitimate, the other tangible, coercive, and less legitimate. This article critiques this binary conceptualisation, arguing that it is discursively constructed with and for t...

In this autobiographical essay, I narrate my experience of being positioned in public as naive in my profession and a traitor to my country after publishing an op-ed in Sweden’s largest daily newspaper, in which I argued that Sweden should not join NATO — the transatlantic military alliance. Some of the negative reactions came from within my own wo...

We are living at a time when people appear to have become more aware of the power of narratives in international politics. Understanding how narratives exercise power is therefore more pertinent than ever. This special issue develops the concept of narrative power for international relations research by focusing on East Asia—the region that has bee...

International relations research acknowledges that states can have different security policies but neglects the fact that 'models' may exist in the security policy realm. This article suggests that it is useful to think about models, which it argues can become examples for emulation or be undermined through narrative power. It illustrates the argum...

This article engages with China's “politics of harmony” to investigate the dangers and possibilities of soft power as a concept and practice. Chinese sources claim that China will be able to exercise soft power due to its tradition of thinking about harmony. Indeed, the concept of harmony looms large in Chinese soft power campaigns, which different...

This article examines Japanese processes of self-formation as reflected in junior high school civics textbooks, comparing books published in 1990 and 2012. It demonstrates surprising continuity in how books from the two years construct a pacifist self in sharp contrast to Japan's prewar and wartime belligerence. We argue that this kind of antagonis...

Japan can now do more or less everything that other, more ‘normal’ countries do in the security field.

Why is Japan so often branded “abnormal,” and where does the desire to “normalize” come from? Drawing on a relational concept of identity, and the distinction between norm and exception, this chapter understands this “abnormality–normalization nexus” in terms of three identity-producing processes: (1) Japan’s socialization in United States/“Western...

One of the key challenges graduate students face is how to come up with a good rationale for their theses. Unfortunately, the methods literature in and beyond political science does not provide much advice on this important issue. While focusing on how to conduct research, this literature has largely neglected the question of why a study should be...

This article demonstrates that a national identity defined by a normative commitment to peace is not necessarily an antidote to remilitarisation and war. More specifically, the article takes issue with the debate about the trajectory of Japan’s security and defence policy. One strand of the debate holds that Japan is normatively committed to peace...

Beijing and Tokyo are currently involved in a zero-sum battle for soft power. Both governments are actively trying to shape how third party actors understand contested matters in their bilateral relationship. The dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands is the most obvious flashpoint in this ongoing struggle for hearts and minds. A soft power battle...

After Kim Jong-il's confession in 2002 that North Korean agents had abducted thirteen Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, North Korea has become the most detested country in Japan, and the normalisation of bilateral relations has been put on the back burner. The abduction issue has taken precedence in Japan even over North Korea's development...

Two approaches to identity have been employed to explore issues in Japan's international relations. One views identity as constituted by domestic norms and culture, and as constitutive of interests, which in turn cause behaviour. Proponents view Japan's ‘pacifist’ and ‘antimilitarist’ identity as inherently stable and likely to change only as a res...

The widespread debate on an East Asian power shift is generally based on the crude notion that power and capability are inter-changeable. We critique this view and offer the alternative that power is the capacity of actors and discourses to produce effects— what we call relational and productive power, respectively. We also engage in a reflexive ex...

The term ‘abnormal’ has frequently been used to describe post-war Japan. Together with the idea that the country will, or should have to, ‘normalise’ its foreign and security policy, it has been reproduced in both academia and Japanese society. Why is Japan branded as ‘abnormal’, and from where does the desire to ‘normalise’ it come? Drawing on a r...

The aim of this article is to contribute to the discussion on how examinations can be designed to enhance students’ learning and increase throughput in terms of the number of students who sit, and pass, the course examination. The context of the study is a basic level political science course on power analysis, which initially suffered from low thr...

The widespread debate on an East Asian power shift is generally based on the crude notion that power and capability are interchangeable. We critique this view and offer the alternative that power is the capacity of actors and discourses to produce effects—what we call relational and productive power, respectively. We also engage in a reflexive exer...

For the last four decades Sino-Japanese relations have been characterized by steadily growing economic and sociocultural interactions. Yet, greater interdependence has developed in tandem with bilateral tensions. Many analysts have attempted to explain the latter as a result of Japan trying to balance or contain the burgeoning growth of Chinese cap...

How to understand Japan's identity is one of the most enduring themes in research on the country's international relations.

From the late 1990s to the late 2000s, scholarly literature and media analysis shifted from representing the Sino-Japanese relationship as generally “good,” to portraying it as generally “bad,” and then back to describing it as generally “good” again. This article aims to make sense of what could thus be construed as fluctuations in Sino-Japanese r...

A Referendum Law took effect in Japan in May 2010. Since a referendum is a prerequisite to any change to the Japanese ‘Peace Constitution’, this is an event with potentially far-reaching consequences. By gauging the Democratic Party of Japan's views on the issue of revision of the constitution—particularly revision of the famous Article 9, with rem...

This article analyzes Japanese foreign security policy and recent talk of “remilitarization.” It does so by assessing the changes that most closely parallel the analytical interests of three sets of major international relations theories: namely capability (realism), policy (liberalism), and normative context (constructivism). Japanese responses to...

This article is written against the backdrop of widely discussed changes in Japanese foreign security policy in the 2000s* changes often attributed to an intensifying North Korea threat and growing rivalry with China. Employing Walt's notion of "threat'' (in effect, offensive power plus aggressive intentions), the thesis of this article is that Chi...

This article demonstrates how Tokyo has been exercising economic power in the multilateral talks on North Korea, including over the U.S. The implication is that Japanese foreign and security policy can be regarded as "normal" already - hence forming a critique of ideas of "normalization" that are preconditioned on remilitarization.

The idea that Japan is playing an 'alternative role' in its foreign policy—that it is keeping a 'conspicuously low profile' and that its stance is in some sense 'unique'—has been a recurring theme of analysis of Japanese foreign policy. This article aims to critique this idea of Japanese exceptionalism, epitomised for instance in the 'aikido state'...

The message of Japanese insignificance in international affairs can be found in many different literatures, including that on the formation of policy towards North Korea in the 1990s and 2000s, in particular in regard to the recurring nuclear crisis. Books and articles on the topic either exclude Japanese foreign policy altogether or tend to emphas...

The aim of this article is to demonstrate how a relational concept of power can benefit Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA). It begins by drawing attention to the fact that Japan’s foreign policy has been portrayed rather enigmatically in terms of power, and by arguing that such an enigma stems from the fact that FPA has borrowed the concept of power of...

This article demonstrates that ubiquitous references to ‘power’ in English-language foreign policy discourse can be understood in the light of the inclination in international relations theory to place power on a par with capability. It makes two claims: that such a concept of power is ill-fitted for foreign policy analysis; and that much clarity w...

How should Japan's foreign policy or role in the world be characterized? This question has been under discussion for some four decades, and answers have often been put in terms of ‘power’. By using a new framework for analyzing foreign policy – what is called ‘relational power analysis’ – this article aims to offer a conceptually more coherent pict...

Japan's China Policy understands Japan's foreign policy in terms of power - one of the most central concepts of political analysis. It contributes a fresh understanding to the subject by developing relational power as an analytical framework and by applying it to significant issues in Japan's China policy: the negotiations for a bilateral investmen...

This paper takes its point of departure in a critique of the predominant way in which Japanese power has been conceived/perceived in academic Japanese foreign policy discourse. As an alternative to the /lack of/ power analysis within this discipline, it introduces a relational concept of power and then starts to develop its analytical potential. Th...

In this paper different schools of Japanese policymaking are classified according to two variables: a) Defense/criticism of Japanese practices; and b) Number of actors. Then the common focal point of all such schools on the relevant actors and their relationships is reiterated and discussed. Finally, departing from Quansheng Zhao’s Japanese Policym...

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate how scholars have related to the term ‘power’ in their research of post-Cold War Japanese foreign policy; how they have filled the term with meaning, i.e. how they have associated it with a concept. This is done through an analysis of English and Japanese texts, both those that do not include an expl...