Abstract:Do norms influence Japan’s foreign aid? Japan’s aid policy statements have increasingly emphasized humanitarian and democratic values, but few studies demonstrate a shift in Japan’s aid policy that reflects this changing discourse. In this study, I seek to determine if Japan’s foreign aid commitments increasingly reflect normative factors or continue to be allocated based on commercial or security considerations. The results indicate that humanitarian and democratic values had very little influence on Japan’s foreign aid commitments over the entire analysis period. Contrary to conventional wisdom, commercial benefits had little importance before 1992 and are a significant factor only during the 1992–2001 period. Security considerations are strong predictors during the Cold War period and are even more significant after 2001 when Japan’s foreign aid became increasingly aligned with US security policies. Further, Japan has not substantially increased the share of its aid to “soft” sectors or disaster response, but it has adopted the international norm of debt relief for highly indebted poor countries and shifted a substantial amount of foreign aid from infrastructure lending to debt forgiveness.

中文翻译：

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国际规范与日本对外援助

摘要：规范会影响日本的对外援助吗？日本的援助政策声明越来越强调人道主义和民主价值观，但很少有研究表明日本援助政策的转变反映了这种不断变化的话语。在这项研究中，我试图确定日本的对外援助承诺是越来越多地反映规范因素，还是继续基于商业或安全考虑进行分配。结果表明，在整个分析期间，人道主义和民主价值观对日本的对外援助承诺几乎没有影响。与传统观点相反，商业利益在 1992 年之前并不重要，仅在 1992-2001 年期间才成为重要因素。在冷战时期，安全考虑是强有力的预测因素，在 2001 年日本的外援与美国的安全政策越来越一致之后，安全考虑更为重要。此外，日本并没有大幅增加对“软”部门或灾害响应的援助份额，但它采用了为重债穷国减免债务的国际规范，并将大量外援从基础设施贷款转向债务减免。 .