The undersecuritization of COVID-19 in Japan: Voluntary behavioral change as self-defense?

Abstract

Facing the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), leaders of many countries attempted to securitize the COVID-19 issue. The Japanese government, however, neither attempted to securitize it nor implemented strong measures to control its circulation. Yet the behavior of Japanese citizens changed significantly to prevent the spread of COVID-19. What were the mechanisms that drove them to voluntarily change their behavior? By introducing the analytical concept of ‘undersecuritization’, this article tries to answer this question, as well as to broaden the scope of the securitization argument. It first analyzes why Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did not attempt to securitize COVID-19. It then examines the mechanism behind citizens’ behavioral change. When Japanese citizens perceived the measures taken by their government as too weak to address the life-threatening COVID-19 issue, they started to feel that it was undersecuritized. This article argues that such awareness was the reason behind the voluntary behavioral changes that the Japanese people made in self-defense. It also shows that such self-defense measures can be more formidable than the measures taken by the government in a situation of oversecuritization.