It is in this context that those efforts, including especially the effort to transform ideas into concrete policy measures, came to be defined as "international contributions." This newly coined term naturally gained currency among ordinary Japanese. It sounded a bit awkward to me, however, because it implies considerable passivity and lack of creativity with respect to the kind of world vision that can be discerned from such an ambiguous expression. This was especially true when the international community looked at Japan through the lens of Ezra Vogel's famous "Japan as Number One" image, which he first used in a book of the same title. Japan was indeed at a historical juncture at the beginning of the 1990s, when the First Gulf War broke out in 1990 and the Paris Peace Agreement was finally concluded in 1991 to end the civil war in Cambodia. These incidents compelled Japan to present concrete actions for further engagement internationally. It was a moment that tested Japan's resolve in a changing world. On the other hand, there was strong criticism or reluctance within the country about the advocacy of more active external engagement or "international contributions," despite the vast national interests involved. This attitude of passivism or war-weary mentality apparently arose out of a post-war idealism, so-called "one nation pacifism." In this connection, intriguing is one analytical comment that the ambiguity of the new jargon was rather politically preferred and therefore tacitly adopted as a compromise or a balancing act in the midst of heated debates involving a range of political ideologies and party platforms on such a highly contentious issue. According to Professor Toshikazu Inouye, respected scholar of the diplomatic history of Japan, any policy measures to give concrete form to "international contributions" without due consideration of Japan's bitter past experience would be not so much controversial as divisive, even after the lapse of a half century.

In light of not only Japan's historical background made clear above, but also its diminishing international standing, with relative economic strength these days reduced by roughly half compared with that of a generation earlier, and its nevertheless important role to play internationally, the importance of the issue of international cooperation or "international contributions" is easily understood. Japan is a country conditioned to living together and thinking internationally at least as much as many other countries. Peace building is one key policy measure to help rebuild war-torn nations and to restore peace and stability to the international community at a time of uncertainty and instability precipitated by globalization. It serves as an important diplomatic agenda for Japan, which as a major member of the international community must continue to struggle to promote international solidarity and cooperation for its own national interests. I firmly believe that although a strong inward-looking public mood and behavior have swept the country during the past decades of economic stagnation, the Japanese people are well aware of the importance of international engagement and are no less interested in peace building as a concrete measure of promoting international solidarity and cooperation.

2. Five Insights of Peace Building
In his remarks on a new book titled The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama says, "In the developed world, we take the existence of government so much for granted that we sometimes forget how difficult it is to create." His remarks accord with a core component of my academic framework that I share with my students when I teach as a practitioner-turned-scholar on the study of peace building. The framework I emphasize in class with a view to offering a set of basic understandings about the subject is composed of five pieces of insight that I have developed by combining theory and practice on the subject. They are as follows.

(1)The first insight is about the characteristic of the main subject and its related themes, which are addressed these days in what is called "peace building" studies. Briefly said, it is an academic subject that involves a variety of social sciences and humanity studies, ranging from political science, law, and economics to sociology, anthropology, and the like. In other words, it has a research and study perspective that is not only multi-disciplinary but also combines new and old. Despite its novelty, the study of peace building addresses specific issues such as decolonization, nation building, and development assistance to newly independent countries, most of which came into being since the 1960s, known as the Decade of Decolonization. At the same time, it also addresses larger problems that are related to so-called modernization theory.

Following the end of the Cold War, and especially the 9/11 incidents, attention has shifted to a new phenomenon termed "collapsed states," "fragile states," or "failed states." It refers, generally speaking, to the break-up of normal state functions typically demonstrated by law enforcement through the legitimate use of force against social disorder and massive violence within delineated territories. State failures are regarded as likely to develop into "weak links" of international society that are apt to be a potential cause of international instability. It is in this context that peace building is expected to play a significant role in solving the problems and thus takes on strategic importance. Those "irregular" state conditions are typically broken down into the following categories, depending upon how one defines state functions whose attributes are defined by either coercion, capacity, legitimacy, or capital/assets. They are: i) weakening or cessation of the delivery of public goods or services promised citizens by their state (by William Zertman and Robert Rotberg), ii) breakdown of the legitimate monopoly of the use of force by the state (by Max Weber), iii) spread of illegal violence and deterioration of public order and daily life (by Michael Ignatieff), iv) hollowing out of empirical statehood despite of the assumption of juridical statehood (by Robert Jackson), and v) breakout and prolongation of civil wars (by the State Failure Task Force). During the U.S. presidential campaign of 2000, George W. Bush strongly rejected nation building as an agenda for his presidency and won election. Nevertheless, the fact that President Bush suffered enormously from the difficulties of a post-conflict enterprise in Iraq even after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein is harsh testimony to stern realities. As is crystal-clear due to the mixed effects of globalization and interconnectedness, the "failed state" paradigm has been widely taken not only as a valid analytical framework for high-priority threats, but also as a compelling policy objective with respect to such threats. However, critical views were expressed, with the lapse of a decade, about the policy attitudes toward dealing with the "failed state" syndrome. For example, Michael Mazarr, one of the critics, says that "the secondary issues became dominant ones." How the dispute unfolds will bear careful watching.

From my field experience, I truly acknowledge the importance of development as a valuable policy tool for successful peace building. In this regard, Robert Zoellick, former President of the World Bank Group, recognized "novelty" in a newly emerging environment for development efforts when he addressed the 2008 annual plenary of the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) held in Geneva, Switzerland. Zoellick underscores the importance of "securing development," by which he means "bringing security and development together first to smooth the transition from conflict to peace and then to embed stability so that development can take hold over a decade and beyond." Zoellick advocates "the nexus among economics, governance and security." Zoellick argues, "The most critical challenges are concentrated where governance, economy, and security intersect. We need to integrate a variety of tools ― military, political, legal, developmental, financial, and technical ― and a variety of actors, including states, international organizations, civil society, and the private sector." This was the central theme and title of The World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security and Development. Zoellick disclosed, in the foreword to the report, the reason why he chose the IISS as a venue to address the aforementioned theme, saying that he wanted to emphasize the interlinkages between security, governance, and development and to draw the attention of a host of traditional security experts present in the audience to the fact that lack of inter-sector coordination prevents solving the "failed state" problem, leading to a new source of security threats. But, Zoellick admits at the same time that "This will not be easy." Judging from my own experience on the ground, I agree about how difficult and exhausting a task it is to work on coordination not only within each aid organization, but also between a variety of aid actors. A tragic blunder and confused coordination of refugee relief support activity efforts that took place in 1999 in northern Iraq in the wake of the First Gulf War remains a vivid reminder.

To look at the matter from a different angle, one clue to understanding Zoellick's first theme may be found in an analytical observation made by Nicholas Stern, former World Bank chief economist, that "Civil war thus reflects not just a problem for development but a failure of development." Another hint is an article in a column of a Japanese newspaper that discusses a feature story recently carried by The Southern People Weekly, a Chinese liberal magazine in Guangzhou, on the Meiji Restoration and Japan's modernization process. The Japanese columnist maintains that the Chinese editor of the feature story, who desired to deliver a message of contemporary implications, ended up concluding that while Japan succeeded in scientific and economic development, it failed in politics and eventually allowed the military to go astray and wreak devastation. The reader may perhaps be unconsciously tempted to engage in intellectual curiosity about a genuine political message that might be read between the lines of the story. In this regard, I believe that Samuel Huntington provides intellectually fascinating clues in his propositions against the traditional modernization theory. Huntington argues against the academic theme that "Economic development, changing social relationships like urbanization, and the breakdown of primary kinship groups, higher and more inclusive levels of education, normative shifts towards values like 'achievement' and rationality, secularization, and the development of democratic political institutions were all seen as an interdependent whole." Drawing on Huntington's idea, I am tempted to leap to a provisional conclusion that for peace building as well, it is imperative to undertake not only economic, but also political development, which evolves on its own logic.

(2) Second, another important aspect for peace building is the relationship between the "two actors," one being the "local" people (aid receiver) and the other the "outside" peace builders (aid provider). The expression that "It takes two to tango" exactly fits this very delicate relationship between the two actors. It therefore should be considered quite unusual and exceptional that Jay Garner and Paul Bremer had first to exert substituting authority for the absence of law enforcement functions to keep social order in the early days after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and then to launch authoritarian state building in the form of what Michael Ignatieff terms Empire Lite. Taking into consideration the memorable words of former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers "No one ever washes a rented car," I argue that primary attention be paid to the local actor, who must be in the "driver's seat." Therefore, the issues of "local ownership" and "local capacity building," among other things, should be not only a central policy subject, but also a required academic research theme for peace building. In this connection, Fukuyama underlines the importance of local ownership and calls it "community-driven development" model, which was promoted in the 1950s and 1960s by private foundations and mutual aid agencies. However, in the scholarship of the early 1990s on peace building, precious little attention was paid, and there was poor understanding, of how important the role played by the local actor is for peace building. In their co-authored article of 1992, Gerald Helman and Steven Ratner proposed somewhat notable policy designs for political control, such as "conservatorship" for Saving Failed States, most of which, even though novel and wide-ranging, were apparently shaped from the view-point of an outsider rather than of the local actor at the center. But we can find in their approach several local actor-friendly elements for peace building. They are premised on "some regime in domestic systems whereby the community itself manages the victims when it confronts persons who are utterly incapable of functioning on their own due to broken families, serious mental, or physical illness, or economic destitution." "Three models for a UN guardianship role are suggested: governance assistance, delegation of governmental authority, and direct UN trusteeship," depending upon the extent to which the local actor can still govern itself. Incidentally, in this connection, I still remember the tragic death of Sergio de Mello, a senior U.N. official, at the U.N. compound in Bagdad in August 2003 soon after his arrival from East Timor, where he had successfully completed his peace building mission. In an editorial, The New York Times, correctly reviewing his role in overseeing transition to independence in East Timor, states, "In reality, he began his work there with too heavy an authoritarian hand, but he soon backed off and increased the role of the Timorese in the transition."

On the other hand, in the true meaning of peace building, what is fundamentally expected of the outside peace builders is not to administer control, but to provide assistance. It sometimes turns out, however, that the donor's logic of the state, organizational rhetoric of the state's aid agencies, or excessive claims for domestic purposes in the name of accountability to taxpayers trumps considerations on behalf of the local actor, and local conditions are disregarded. Neither international aid organizations nor international NGOs are exceptions to this, despite their own unique advantages as aid providers. A somewhat distorted framework for peace building is therefore more likely to prevail and, as a result, tends not only to overlook the necessity of an exit strategy but also to exert bad influence on the whole enterprise. The same is true of the local actor. Over the years, warnings have repeatedly been issued against, for instance, the dangers of "aid addiction" and the inertia of "excessive aid dependency," both of which silently creep into the local actor's habits. Furthermore, Fukuyama adds to his other caution that "The local ownership is never a panacea" and that "In fact it often degenerated into corruption, self-dealing, or, at best, rent-seeking mentality in which local input simply became an excuse for demanding more resources." Nevertheless, as Fukuyama urges on the other hand, the "good-willed" peace builder must restrain from "local capacity sucking-out" and keep vigilant to "do no harm," a slogan familiar to humanitarian relief and aid workers on the ground. These cautions should also be applicable to "good partnership," which I discuss next.

When the relationship between the local actor and the outside peace builder is taken up as a discussion topic, I naturally remember a diplomatic initiative Japan undertook just after the end of the Cold War. In 1993, under the leadership of the then Vice Foreign Minister Hisashi Owada, Japan embarked on "an initiative for rethinking in a fundamental way the issue of development and for formulating a new strategy for development in the light of new factors…" The New Development Strategy drew on Japan's rich experience of development cooperation with Southeast Asian countries. This initiative was launched against the historical background in which the barren dispute over methods of development assistance to developing countries, the so-called North-South problem, was finally liberated from the Cold War logic and the "East-West" confrontation, which were tightly linked with the aforementioned dispute. What struck me are some hints that might be drawn from the twin principles of "local ownership" and "external partnership" that underpinned the New Development Strategy. According to Ambassador Owada, the basic structure of cooperation under the twin principles has its origin in the execution of the reparations scheme that Japan formulated in order to compensate for war damages in the Southeast Asian region. Ryokichi Hirono, professor emeritus of development economics, participated at the time in survey missions to assess Japan's reparations program. He later put on record the following personal recollection: "The Japanese government decided to embark on overseas aid, articulating its developmental nature focused on economic development of Asian countries in contrast to the United States' anti-communist posture. It was Saburo Ohkita, architect of Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda's Doubling of National Income Plan of 1961, who assumed the intellectual leadership for this new diplomatic campaign by adding a new chapter titled the Development of Asia." I was assigned to the overseas aid section during the early period of my diplomatic service, perhaps in the late 1970s and worked on overseas development assistance (ODA), and especially on aid programs through loans. I still remember that despite the strong criticism about "faceless" aid or the absence of aid philosophy, the core components of the de facto rationale that guided us aid staffers in dealing with day-to-day work were the "principle of self-help effort" and "request-based principle." We understood at that time that, on the one hand, the former principle comes from Japan's self-confidence in its post-war economic success, and on the other hand, the latter demonstrates uniqueness in Japan's aid philosophy in the form of respect for the position of the recipients. These hands-on principles are of course in accord with the twin principles mentioned above.

Incidentally, Japan's call for a "new common approach to development" at the G7 Summit of 1993 met with the cold shoulder, if not outright hostility, by the other major donor countries, which were too weary from "aid fatigue" and also too preoccupied with a "peace dividend" for their respective domestic constituencies. And so, the proposal eventually ran out of steam. It is ironic enough, however, that in 2005, almost a decade later, a new campaign to focus on poverty eradication in Africa successfully mustered global momentum that led to successful aid pledges and fund-raising. Ambassador Owada, currently a judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), recalls, "It unfortunately proved to be simply premature as of that time." Ambassador Owada also confesses, "It is ironic to find that the staunch advocates of the negative view among the G7 at that time are those who are now claiming to be at the forefront of the campaign for poverty eradication, albeit represented by different administrations." I, who joined part of the campaign in a role of some responsibility, also confess that it was a great pity. Looking back, however, it is worth noting that besides the regularization of holding at regular intervals the TICAD, or Tokyo International Conference on African Development, there are several intellectual contributions that laid the foundation for future development policies. They are namely: the strong intellectual influence that the innovative idea "output-oriented approach" exerted on the shaping of a new development philosophy, termed "Shaping the 21^st Century: The Contribution of Development Cooperation," which was adopted at the OECD in 1996; some thoughts very akin to that of Human Security, later formalized internationally; and ideas incorporated both in the U.N. Millennium declaration of 2000 and in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The New Development Strategy also recognized the emergence of the new development environment and resonated understanding of the interrelatedness among economics, governance and security that Zoellick formulated. Although more empirical verification and theoretical studies are needed in this regard, I wish that more attention might be paid to these outstanding past achievements made through Japan's diplomatic effort.

(3) Third, I should like to underline the importance of (governmental) institution building. According to Roland Paris, there is convergence of opinion accumulated over the past two decades summing up both research in the laboratory and practice in the field. As Paris states, "One of the most important macro-level shifts in peace building strategy occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when major peace building agencies began emphasizing the construction or strengthening of legitimate governmental institutions in countries emerging from civil conflicts, or what we call 'state building' in this book. State building is a particular approach to peace building, premised on the recognition that achieving security and development in societies emerging from civil war partly depends on the existence of capable, autonomous and legitimate governmental institutions." Scholars and practitioners have come closer to a conclusion that peace building is tantamount to state building. In other words, "institutions (also) matter" even in peace building. And so development economists, represented by Douglass North, for example, have recently begun to mention institution building as a solution for reducing poverty, a problem that had been left unsolved despite independence.

Fukuyama, one of the five prominent figures Paris refers to, compares institution building to transfer of "software" while trade of goods and materials is compared with transfer of "hardware." At the same time Fukuyama emphasizes the necessity of adjustment with various ― political, economic, and social ― local conditions of society and says the following:

"The local character of the knowledge required to design a wide variety of good administrative practices suggests that administrative capacity isn't actually transferred from one society to another by developed-world administrators sitting around lecturing their less-developed counterparts about how things are done in their country or in a mythical 'Denmark.' General knowledge of foreign administrative practices need to be combined with a deep understanding of local constraints, opportunities, habits, norms, and conditions. This means that administrative and institutional solutions need to be developed not just with input or by-in from the local officials who will be running local institutions, but by them. The East Asian fast developers with strong governance imported certain institutions but modified them substantially to make them work in their societies. They certainly did not grow by allowing foreign donors to establish institutions in their own country that crowded out domestic ones."

"When state institutions do not adequately protect citizens, guard against corruption, or provide access to justice; when markets do not provide job opportunities; or when communities have lost social cohesion―the likelihood of violent conflict increases. At the earliest stage, countries often need to restore public confidence in basic collective action even before rudimentary institutions can be transformed. Early wins―actions that can generate quick, tangible result―are critical."

On top of the characteristics of state building identified with the "supply side (of the institution)," no less important is a genuine request for institution building made within the "demand side (of the institution)." It is because of the nature of the transfer of institutions that it frequently requires self-reform efforts that may impose a harsh burden of self-sacrifice and self-denial. In this connection, Charles Tilly presents the famous theme "war made the state and the state made war," drawing upon the historical lesson that modern state institutions now in place in the developed countries ― the regular army, strengthened taxation system and nation-wide judicial system, for instance ― were all products of conquering wars between powers. Fukuyama proves Tilly's historic theme by applying it to the case of state building of Qin in the China of antiquity. And, Fukuyama, referring to a package of three political institutions that underpins the modern (liberal democratic) state ― namely, the state (institution) in the term defined by Max Weber, the rule of law, and accountable government ― further argues that an original form of the state dates back eighteen hundred years further to Qin. Fukuyama maintains that the outstanding feature of the modern state can be described as being "impersonal," "bureaucratic," "hierarchical," and "equal" compared to the traditional or patrimonial state. He also says that while the state is all about (the exercise of) power, the other two institutions are about checking of power. There are many definitions concerning the rule of law. What is politically important according to Fukuyama is that there exists a body of laws that is seen as representing the consensus of the community in terms of what is justice and that there is a customary practice or political culture already in place that powerful rulers are not above the law. Fukuyama also explains that "accountable government means that the rulers believe that they are responsible to the people they govern and put the people's interests above their own." Political order of the modern state can only be brought into being by achieving a good balance of these three political institutions. Fukuyama nevertheless observes that this is not historically easy, but rather almost impossible, as is clear from the case of China, where although the modern state institution appeared earlier in history, the other two political institutions never did.

As I mentioned at the beginning, the Meiji Restoration and Japan's attempts at modern state building, which were propelled by a sense of heightened external crisis in the face of the aggressive advancement into East Asia by the Western colonial powers, are said to be a rare successful case of "demand for institution" in world history. In his recently published book, titled Aikoku, Kakumei and Minshu (tentatively translated in English as Patriotism, Revolution and Democracy), which focuses on the "indigenousness" and "universality" of modern Japan's history, Professor Hiroshi Mitani says, "The outcome of the Meiji Restoration was enormous if placed in a global perspective. It should be considered, therefore, unusual should it not appear as a good example for comparative studies of political changes."

All of these narratives, which are based on quite unfortunate historical realities, eloquently illustrate how difficult it would be to create autonomous demand for institution building or institutional reform from within. Therefore, it is truly a major challenge to find new and substitutive incentives for demand for institutions in peaceful circumstances. Fukuyama, who denies being a historical determinist, explains that the birth of the three political institutions was contingent either to haphazard circumstances or to accidental incidents, both of which occurred in the pre-Industrial Revolution societies. Thomas Malthus, author of Essay of the Principle of Population, described these societies as low-productivity and stagnant. Institutions are copied and improved and are, with the lapse of time, learned and converged across societies. With regard to political development in contemporary society, Fukuyama pays special attention to forces for reform generated not only by sustainable economic growth made possible thanks to dynamic technical innovation, but also by ideas/justice. One hint about self-generating reform forces is the so-called "good neighborhood" effect, as Michael Ignatieff calls it, which may induce applicant countries for EU admission into voluntary effort for institutional reforms. Robert Zoellick, former U.S. Trade Representative, is very experienced and knowledgeable about how useful trade is as a political means to promote macro-economy and domestic structural reform. He knows well that Zhu Ronji, then premier of China, took advantage, as a political lever, of the WTO accession in order to launch internal reform campaigns. Zoellick now wonders "how negotiations for bilateral investment treaties, WTO talks on overseas competition, and even eventual free trade deals could help implement the design sketched by the plenum." Zoellick concludes that "We will see whether a policy of Mao and the market proves internally consistent."

(4) Fourth, as indicated by the saying "No one size fits all," there are a variety of approaches to and many different solutions for peace building depending on local conditions, on the one hand, and on a combination of necessary resources, useful tools, and good plans, on the other. At this juncture, I recall that then World Bank President Zoellick honestly admitted of new approaches and solutions based on more diversifying development experiences and committed to a de facto denial of the Washington Consensus. Zoellick said, "This is no longer about the Washington Consensus. One cannot have a consensus about political economy from one city applying to all. This is about experience regarding what is working ― in New Delhi, in San Paulo, in Beijing, in Cairo, and Accra. Out of experience may come consensus. But only if it is firmly grounded ― and broadly owned." The post-conflict reconstruction plans the United States adopted in Afghanistan and Iraq in the wake of the military operations are often called, respectively, the "light footprint" and "heavy footprint" approaches, as named by a veteran U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. These actual incidents verify the argument that solutions differ from one place to another. One reason lies in the type, the nature, and the final state (whether ending or ceasefire) of the warfare in question, all of which affect, in one way or another, the shape of post-war peace building. The other important reason is a variety of historic conditions woven into each state institution of the post-conflict countries.

I would employ the definition of peace building that Boutros Boutros-Ghali, then U.N. Secretary General, formulated in An Agenda for Peace: that is, "It is action to identify and support structures which will tend to strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid a relapse into conflict." The definition in the Brahimi Report is basically in keeping with that of Boutros-Ghali and was further elaborated by subsequent developments. It defines peace building as "activities undertaken on the far side of conflict to reassemble the foundations of peace and provide the tools for building on those foundations something that is more than just the absence of war." To that end, I believe it would be necessary to prepare the conditions of society to reconcile warring parties with each other and also to foster a political culture buttressed by ethic of pluralism ― tolerance, cooperation and compromise, for instance ― or a sense of "belongingness" to society, as Judge Owada calls it. Moreover, Professor Kohsaka provides the thoughtful theoretical insight to the formation of political order:

"Political order is partly a dimension of force and also a dimension of value. When we talk about the state, it does not mean just the territorial space where its power reigns. Political order prevails since people within the delineated territories also share the same values. Power not buttressed by shared values just means tyranny or anarchy. We can institute the state only if we are interconnected by invisible threads such as common belief and mutual trust. However, the upbringing of shared values would not be enough for political order. Imposition of power is necessary at the same time. To be more precise, shared values would not be otherwise brought up unless supplemented by enforcement of power."

In this connection, I am intrigued, as one theoretical framework for further analysis of the "bottom-up" approach, with the "state-in-society" model that Joel Migdal presents. Migdal has done a remarkable study on the interactive relations that occur in the form of challenge, resistance, and exchange over "social control" between the state and "social organizations," as a valid framework for theoretical analysis. I am particularly interested in the extent to which the role of social organizations and their capacity may adjust to the evolving process of peace building by implementing self transformation from, for instance, the otherwise selfish and exclusive group identity often called "spoilers" of peace building to a more accommodating and creative existence that contributes to "seamless, united, and strong" state building. Moreover, a far more provocative theme, such as the expression of "Governance without Government" ― realization of a public order, though limited in scale, of peace and stability by a combination of a "weak" government and a "strong" society as is seen in Somaliland, for instance ― stokes the intellectual curiosity of practitioners and researchers alike given the daunting difficulties and stern realities surrounding peace building. Kenneth Menkhaus calls the above-mentioned type of state a "mediated state" and says that such a governing model is observed in the Middle Ages of Europe. Furthermore, in this connection, Francis Fukuyama maintains that the history of political development in Africa is very complicated because of the mixture of past assets from both the pre-colonial and colonial eras. The pre-colonial era was characteristic of "institutional underdevelopment." It is typically attributed to the fact that just when Portugal was about to enter Africa in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, barely half of the continent had reached what is called the traditional state level distinctly different from the modern state level. During the colonial period, the European colonial powers enforced indirect control, or what Fukuyama calls "colonialism on the cheap," and committed a sin of omission by not engaging in such active institutional development as was seen in the British Crown colonies of India and Hong Kong. Fukuyama concludes that the failed colonial policy of the European powers led to the "state weakness" African countries now suffer and explains that dire outcome with the explanatory notion of "political decay."

(5) Last but not least, the fifth insight concerns the relations between peace building and human security. In discussing the topics of peace building and human security, it is truly cumbersome to have to begin by looking for some common ground for the usage of the terms in the absence of shared definitions especially among scholars and researchers. Human security is indeed an innovative idea in and of itself. In contrast to the traditional focus of national security, in which the state is the primary actor, I would define human security as an approach with human beings in the center. Although the meaning of the term "human being" should be examined separately, I am particularly interested in then Japanese U.N. ambassador Yukio Sato's comments that he was struck by arguments made by African representatives to the effect that what is important concerning human security in Africa is the role being played by communities as the basic unit of action.

In this connection, Fukuyama argues against the common premise of the Modern European political theory that human beings were isolated and individualistic in the state of nature, which was advocated by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacque Rousseau. Fukuyama further contends that the premise, which was later called the Hobbesian fallacy, has been proven scientifically wrong by the recent progress of sociology and that human beings were "social creatures" in the pristine state. That is, human beings are endowed with two biological traits, namely, kinship selection and reciprocal altruism, both of which are naturally derived from hereditary human genes, as verified by modern life sciences. And human beings are motivated by the default human behavior that Fukuyama calls "human sociability." When Fukuyama discusses the theories of political development and political decay, he starts with explanations of the nature of state and human biology, which are "the biological foundations of politics," compared to the turtle theory in ancient cosmology. It can be easily understood that the pre-modern society, which rests on "personal relationships," is more "natural" than the modern state society, where more inclusive though "impersonal" relationships trump exclusive but "personal" relationships. This is the very reason why repatrimonialization (of the traditional society) tends to return once political decay proceeds. According to Fukuyama, patrimonialism began to erode after the Germanic peoples who took over the Roman Empire in the sixth century converted to Christianity and were released from the shackles of kinship relations that underpinned the solid basis of property rights. As a result, an individualistic trend gradually gained ground, at least in the Middle Ages, preceding the emergence of the modern state that came to guarantee individual rights. In Europe, social development preceded political development.

Incidentally, the idea of human security first appeared in the UNDP's Human Security Report 1994. It soon captured the attention of the late Premier Keizo Obuchi, who had been seeking a new diplomatic slogan for his political agenda as well as for a solution to the Asian economic and financial crisis of 1997-98, in which social networks for the weak and vulnerable in the Asian region had been torn to tatters. It is gratifying to note that the notion of human security is now widely spread and acknowledged in the international community, partly due to Japan's diplomatic effort to consolidate the content of the idea and to disseminate it internationally, which was made possible by the succeeding governments. Ambassador Sato recalls that in retrospect there were ups and downs at the time of start-up before the notion of human security reached its current state. The following is only part of the drama that unfolded: convergence through difficult internal coordination to the present approach of focusing on poverty reduction while covering at the same time a wider range of global issues; a diplomatic initiative to enhance an international interest and to seek support especially from developing countries; departure from Canada's human security approach, which is more intervention-focused, and characterization of Japan's own approach; set-up of an independent commission composed of wise men and intellectuals, which later developed into the Commission on Human Security jointly chaired by Sadako Ogata and Amartya Sen; and operational relations between the roles played respectively by the U.N. Trust Fund and a newly established aid scheme of ODA for human security. In 2004, Kofi Annan, then Secretary General of the United Nations, visited Japan and, speaking in the Diet (Japan's national parliament), emphasized, "The world will not achieve the Millennium Development Goals without Japan's technological prowess and its focus on human security." Annan's statement tells what Japan's diplomatic endeavor had been all about up to that auspicious moment. Since the transcendental value embedded in this noble idea is not a matter so much of national interest as of a universal human interest, human security might have attracted peoples across the different lines of race, language, nationality, religion and ideology. A few senior Japanese government officials who were actively involved in the campaign testify that Japan's commitment to a human security agenda naturally comes from both the spirit enshrined in the preamble of its Constitution and its proud track record of post-war economic reconstruction and development. They conclude that the primary respect for human dignity rooted in the general thinking of ordinary people in the post-war society of Japan certainly adds to the attractiveness and trustworthiness of its advocacy for human security."

Putting aside the foregoing, I argue that the governmental functions of the "ideal state," premised ever since the modern era on a social contract with the individual citizens of a society, are divided into three categories of security, namely: national security that protects a state's citizens and territories against external aggression, internal/public security that provides public order and safety to ensure fundamental rights and freedom of citizens, and social security that assists citizens in need to fend off their difficulties by offering economic opportunities and social welfare. So far as they can benefit from what the state does for them, people are free from human security crises in the form of the "state failure," or "state collapse" phenomenon. To put things in reverse, peace building intended to restore broken governmental functions is truly a fundamental challenge to realize human security. What worried me enormously on the ground, however, was the existence of what I name the "human security niche," where needy people are left alone unprotected and unheeded beyond the reach of not only their government, but also an ongoing peace building mission, which is usually narrowly mandated with a short duration. People bitterly suffer a marginally existential life on the periphery and at the bottom of society. There are also people who suffer as much under suppressive regimes. In other words, all of these people are people whose lives are deprived of both "freedom from fear" and "freedom from want" and, at the same time, are always placed at risk of further deterioration by the vicious cycle of poverty and conflict, which tend to be inseparably linked. I breathed a sigh of relief to learn that a handful of aid tools and methods Japan had developed, which I briefly touched on earlier, were framed with a human security or people-centered approach and enabled to offer a helping hand to such people.

The problem of human difficulties in the dire circumstances mentioned above may be categorized as one type of human security. The other category I would acknowledge relates to the so-called non-traditional security threats: international crimes, global warming, environmental degradation, piracy, or communicable diseases, to name a few. I would argue that while the aforementioned first category is marked by the inability, failure, or malfunction of the state, which should otherwise protect the people as their primary guardian, the second category is distinct in that the state alone can no longer afford to protect against a newly emerging type of threats. Prescriptions vary. They cannot be addressed by a single government, but rather require a multilateral approach with a combination of a variety of actors and methods. This second category of human security has three common denominators: global simultaneity and interlinkages, cross-border transmission, and early prevention. Furthermore, although I cannot predict whether a third or fourth category will come into being, I am now keen to further develop my thinking on Judge Owada's theme. That is, due to further deepening of globalization as well as humanization, the international community has been steadily, though partially, moving toward a genuine global community with "public order or public goods," interlinked through increased human interchanges of cross-border businesses and of common ideas and values interfering in one way or another with the existing state-centered legal framework. Judge Owada ponders on a new human security challenge: a new norm would require certain limitations, concerning specific issues or presumed space of human activity, on action of the nation state under the justification of supreme human value transcending that of the Westphalian system, in which the nation state is the primary actor. Judge Owada notes a few actual cases, including the international environmental regime and dispute over the responsibility to protect (RtoP), of the issue in question. I suppose that things will depend on several variables, such as future societal developments and new analytical research methods or outcomes.

3. Conclusion
The five insights on peace building I have discussed are my humble attempt to reframe peace building drawing on a Japanese perspective. They are based on Japan's own experience of nation building, first in the Meiji period and later reconstruction in the post-World War II period, and of the past sixty years of development cooperation to developing countries. Despite its brilliant achievements, however, Japan has been adrift during the decades ― or in other words, the two (?) "lost decades" of economic stagnation ― and, as a result, its relative economic might has dwindled. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's political comeback and renewed attempt to bring back Japan's revival is now said to be perhaps a last chance for the country. Kenneth Pyle, an authority of Japan studies, says, "Few countries in modern history have been subject ― and as sensitive, responsive, and adaptive ― to forces of the international environment as Japan." Robert Zoellick, agreeing with Pyle, says, "Japan sweepingly reversed its domestic order to meet the needs of new configurations of the international order." In November 2006, a few months after Abe took office in his first premiership, Zoellick predicted in a friendly way, "Japan is ready for evolution and reform." In 2012, Abe may unambiguously enjoy widespread public support for his renewed reform agenda, which amounts to what I earlier referred to as the demand of institution, a prerequisite for success. Critics and Japan watchers are also supportive this time.

Zoellick, having carefully examined a tidal change of political economy in the international community, not only pays attention to the importance of economic logic in the context of security problems, but also evaluates the power of economics as a factor for security consideration and underlines the strategic importance of the connections between security and economics. There is much that Japan could and should learn from this analysis. Indeed, some of the political leaders of the Meiji Era worked hard to engage in statecraft while recognizing that economic might is part of the core for nation building, especially at the early stage of "construction" following regime change. Having learned from his research tour of Europe that economic and industrial power underpins the foundation of strong empire, Toshimichi Okubo, a revolutionary leader of the new government, provided the strong leadership to elevate to a national goal Shokusan or promotion of industry, which should be considered an equally important national agenda as Fukoku-kyohei ("Rich country, strong army") and Kougi-yoron or respect of public debate and public opinion. This is also the case with what is called the "Yoshida Doctrine" of the post-Second World War period, when Japan had to jumpstart from scratch. Philip Stephens, columnist of The Economist magazine, says that today's great games revolve around another dimension of power: not missiles but trade. Stephens points out that "governments are not organized to grasp the strategic significance of economic agreement. Presidents and prime ministers like to talk about war and peace. Trade is for technicians. There is no one to look at the big geoeconomic picture." Taking these considerations into account, I personally support Abe's reform agenda for the same reason other ordinary Japanese do. I strongly hope that Abe's reform initiative will also finally outreach to the outstanding task of repositioning Japan in the international community so that trust of Japan as an "indispensable" member may be restored and further strengthened. International cooperation and peace building must remain important policy tools for Japan's peace agenda and as part of its national security in today's widening meaning of the security concept. In this connection, I have a strong conviction that what characterizes Japan's peace building assistance should lie, in a sense, in the type of "social work" for which Michael Mandelbaum criticized the Clinton administration's foreign policy of the 1990s and, in other words, in the work of Mother Teresa in helping the helpless. Both of these characteristics have now taken on enormous strategic importance internationally, even though all of the domestic political problems in what Fukuyama calls the "weak state world" are basically social and economic in nature. Fortunately, Japan has a rich store of knowhow and experience.

In his General Assembly address of 2013, Prime Minister Abe raised the banner of "Proactive Contribution to Peace" as his diplomatic agenda in pursuit of working together with the international community. Although the content and scope of the agenda has yet to be articulated, Abe has already dropped some hints by proclaiming "Working together with nations with whom we share common values and interests, we will safeguard and cultivate international public goods, ranging from space and cyberspace to the skies and seas, all of which are indispensable for making the world happy and prosperous."I am in full support of this direction and look forward to a more concrete design.

^** The author is now adjunct senior fellow at the JIIA and former professor of international relations at the University of Tokyo. He was Japan’s first ambassador to East Timor from 2004-2005.