About

Thomas Berger is a professor of international relations at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. He joined Boston University in 2001 after having taught for seven years at Johns Hopkins University. Berger's areas of expertise include German and Japanese Politics, International Relations and Comparative Government in East Asia, and Political Culture. He is the author of several books, including 'War, Guilt and World Politics After World War II' and 'Cultures of Antimilitarism: National Security in Germany and Japan,' and is a co-editor of 'Japan in International Politics: The Foreign Policies of an Adaptive State.' His scholarly articles and essays have been published in numerous edited volumes and journals such as International Security, Review of International Studies, German Politics, and World Affairs Quarterly.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Development economics
• Law
• Political economy
• Economics

Selected publications

• Germany and Japan: “Reluctant warriors” no more?

  Asian Journal of Comparative Politics · 2025-03-28

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Signifying the return of great power revisionism by all means, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has had a dramatic impact on the security and defense postures of Germany and Japan, two key US allies with strong anti-military foreign policy traditions based on peace constitutions. In analyzing the two countries’ far-reaching adjustments between 2022 and 2024, this article reflects on four major factors to explain the respective trajectories: threat perceptions, domestic political processes and settings, international institutional settings and alliance structures, and the influence of anti-militarist political cultures. While we identify a reorientation of Germany and Japan towards greater efforts for individual and collective self-defense due to increased threat perceptions, the residual influence of their anti-militarist cultures continues to restrain defense policy changes and their implementation. Interwoven into both countries’ domestic politics, those cultures have pervaded the material and institutional foundations of their security and defense policies in sustained ways.

  PublisherDOI

• Japan and Peaceful Change in the International System The Persistent Peace Nation

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2021 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Political Science
  • Sociology

  Abstract Since 1945 Japan has espoused the principles of peace and peaceful change in the international system. At the same time, it has built a powerful military and has been a key ally for the United States in the Asia-Pacific region. This has opened it up to the charge of being hypocritical. In recent years this charge has gained credence as the government of Prime Minister Abe Shinzō has sought to systematically dismantle many of the institutions on which the notion of Japan as a “peace nation” is founded. What is frequently forgotten is the extent to which the notion of the Japanese peace nation has been contested from the beginning. Japan today remains strongly committed to the principles of peace and peaceful change, and while it has pragmatically sought to adjust its military policies to reflect the increased security threats it faces in the region, it has also expanded its commitment to building regional institutions and relying on diplomacy and trade, rather than military might, as a tool for resolving foreign policy differences.

  PublisherDOI

• Japan’s Incomplete Liberalism

  2020-01-01

  other1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Dark Pasts: Changing the State’s Story in Turkey and Japan. By Jennifer M. Dixon. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018. 276p. $55.00 cloth.

  Perspectives on Politics · 2019-08-21

  article1st authorCorresponding

  An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

  PublisherDOI

• Reluctant Warriors: Germany, Japan, and Their U.S. Alliance Dilemma

  2019-11-26 · 7 citations

  bookSenior author

• Reluctant Warriors

  Brookings Institution Press eBooks · 2019-01-01

  bookSenior author

  <JATS1:p>Can Germany and Japan do more militarily to uphold the international order?Since the end of World War II, Germany and Japan have been the most reluctant of all major U.S. allies to take on military responsibilities. Given their histories, this reluctance certainly is understandable. But because of their size and economic importance, Germany and Japan are the most important U.S. allies in Europe and in East Asia, respectively, and their long-term reluctance to share the defense burden has become a perennial source of frustration for Washington. The potential security roles of Germany and Japan are becoming increasingly important given the uncertainty, indeed volatility, of today's international environment. Under President Trump, friction among allies over burden-sharing is more intense than ever before. Meanwhile, the security environments in Europe and Asia have deteriorated because of the resurgence of a belligerent Russia under Vladimir Putin, the steady rise of an increasingly assertive China, and North Korea's worrisome acquisition of nuclear weapons. Partly in response to these developments, Germany and Japan in recent years have boosted their security efforts, mainly by increasing defense spending and taking on a somewhat broader range of military missions. Even so, because of their cultures of anti-militarism resistance remains strong in both countries to rebuilding the military and assuming more responsibility for sustaining regional or even global peace. InReluctant Warriors, a team of noted international experts critically examines how and why Germany and Japan have modified their military postures since 1990 so far, and assesses how far the countries still have to go—and why. The contributors also highlight the risks the United States takes if it makes too simplistic a demand for the two countries to “do more.”</JATS1:p>

  PublisherDOI

• The triumph of hope over experience

  2018-01-02 · 3 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Japan's economic power was one of the key sources of its influence in the Asian region. As the first Asian nation to successfully industrialize and modernize, Japan developed an enormous head start over other Asian nations, a gap that only began to narrow in the 1980s. Japan has long sought to promote the development of Asian regional institutions, beginning in the 1960s when it proposed the creation of a Pacific Asian Free Trade Area and took the lead in the establishing the Asian Development Bank. However, the type of international institutional arrangements that are emerging in the Asian region are likely to remain relatively weak and underdeveloped, and they will enhance Japanese soft power only to a limited extent. The impact of International trends on Japan's image in Northeast Asia, and thus on its ability to exercise soft power in the region, has been devastating.

  PublisherDOI

• Precarious balances

  2018-02-19

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  There are few countries in the world whose foreign relations are as much burdened by the past as Japan’s. Yet there are also few countries in the world whose relationship to the past is as enshrouded in myth or as poorly understood as Japan’s. Despite the conventional wisdom, far from suffering from amnesia, Japan has been obsessed with the past – including its role as a perpetrator of atrocity - and debated it for decades. At the root of many of these misconceptions is a fundamentally misguided and naïve understandings of the way in which the politics of history works. How people choose to interpret facts and put them together to create historical narratives reflects not only their own subjective experiences, but also their economic, political and security interests. Japan has at numerous times been able to find an equilibrium over historical issues that has allowed a degree of fitful cooperation between Japan and its neighbors. Over time, however, it has been increasingly difficult to maintain a stable balance, and disputes over history have come to bleed over into issues – most notably territorial disputes. While the region’s leaders continue to try to contain the resulting tensions, the balances that they find are becoming increasingly precarious.

  PublisherDOI

• Cultural Security Perceptions in Northeast Asia and Their Impact on Energy Cooperation

  Rice Digital Scholarship Archive (Rice University) · 2016-09-19

  other

  Paper from Energy Forum study "Japanese Energy Security and Changing Global Energy Markets: An Analysis of Northeast Asian Energy Cooperation and Japan"s Evolving Leadership Role in the Region"

  Publisher

• The Perception of China and Foreign Policy Options for Germany and Japan

  2013-01-01

  articleSenior author
  Publisher

Frequent coauthors

• Masaru Kohno

  Waseda University

  5 shared

• Keiko Yamanaka

  Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University

  4 shared

• Mary C. Brinton

  Harvard University Press

  4 shared

• Inoue Yūko

  University of California, Berkeley

  4 shared

• Gotō Kenji

  University of California, Berkeley

  4 shared

• W. F. Steele

  4 shared

• Ken- Neth Robinson

  University of California, Berkeley

  4 shared

• Katharine H. S. Moon

  Dartmouth Hospital

  4 shared

Education

• B.A.

  Columbia College

• Ph.D.

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology