Cultures of Order explores how Germany and Japan each struggled to define an appropriate role for themselves in the postwar international order. In Germany, proponents of institutional constraint fought and generally prevailed over those who stressed national rights. This pattern continued even as Germany achieved unification at the end of the Cold War. In Japan, however, the national rights strategy was more successful, and Japanese leaders have been less willing than their German counterparts to predicate international order on commitment to an emergent institutional framework. In both cases, the choices made by leaders were critical, despite the constraints under which they operated. In this book the authors utilize a constructivist theory of order, emphasizing the distinctive ways language works to normative effect, to explain these debates and how they have contributed to two very different "cultures of order."