Japanese strategic documents: content analysis of the National Defense Program guidelines

The development and direction of Japan’s security policy is a topic of strategic importance in the region of East Asia, especially in the light of recent development of reinterpretation of the pacifist Constitution in terms of collective defense and its exercise. The aim of this article was to reveal and analyze trends and dissimilarities in Japan’s security policy after the end of the Cold War through the use of both quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The objects of the analysis were four subsequent revisions of National Defense Program Guidelines, a basic strategic document, from years 1995, 2004, 2010 and 2013. The first quantitative part revealed significant security concepts, which the strategic documents concentrated most on and their changes over time. The second qualitative part provided for a complex relationship model of security policy and influencing categories, and their gradual development in time.