A New Approach to Global Studies from the Perspective of Small Nations

by Kiyonobu Date (Editor), Jean-François Laniel (Editor)

Overview

With emphasis on East Asian and North American examples – notably Japan and Quebec – Date, Laniel and their contributors take a new approach to the understanding of small nations and their role in the international system.

Small nations, by their very nature, raise significant questions about what a nation is. Some small nations are sovereign states with relatively small populations and limited territory, others are nations within larger sovereign states, with distinctive cultures, governance structures or other features that differentiate them from their “parent” state. By focussing on non-European nations in particular, the contributors to this volume challenge our conceptions of what a small nation is and how it operates within the international system. They focus in particular on the nation-within-a-nation-state of Quebec and on Japan, supplemented by further examples from East Asia. By interrogating what these examples have to show us about the typology and character of small nations, they offer a critique of superpower and draw out the potential of small nation studies.

A valuable resource for students and scholars of international relations and theories of the nation and nation state.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032497358
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/13/2023
Series:	The University of Tokyo-Routledge Global Studies Series
Pages:	290
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Kiyonobu Date is Professor in the Department of Area Studies at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the University of Tokyo, Japan.

Jean-François Laniel is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the Université Laval, Canada.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I: Quebec society through the lens of the small nation

1. A Small Nation in Search of Normalcy: Modern Quebec and its Significant Others

2. The return from Europe and the return from America as heuristic figures of the small nation in Quebec

3. The Value of an Intercultural Citizenship Regime for Small Nations: The Case of Quebec

4. Between vulnerability and adaptability: rethinking financial interventionism in Quebec as a "small nation"

Part II: Re-examining Japan from a small-nation perspective

5. Japan, a Small Nation Feigning to be Something Greater: Redefining Universality with Special Reference to the Religious and the Secular and a Counter Intellectual History

6. Imagining a Small Nation in an Empire: Kōtoku Shūsui and His “Small-Nationism”

7. The Foundational Violence of Sovereignty: The Racist Logic of "Rescuing" the Ainu

8. Inventing "Independence": A Short Intellectual History of Post-war Okinawa

Part III: Diversity: Small nations in subnational contexts

9. Small Nations, Empires, and the Commonwealth: Canada, Quebec, Newfoundland, and Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon in Global Perspective

10. Philosophy in Hong Kong after 1949: Tang Chun-i, Lao Sze-kwang and Cheung Chan-fai

11. "The Other America" and the Quest for Economic Justice: Race, Gender, and the Struggle over Guaranteed Income in the Late 20th Century United States

12. People or Nation? East European Jews’ Struggle over Their Categorization before the Holocaust

Epilogue Size Matters: Small Nations’ Existential Pursuits of Power, Happiness, and Purpose