Explaining the Promotion of Japan's Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy: Evidence from 244 Diplomatic Missions, 2016-2025

How do states promote geopolitical strategy? Prior scholarship underscores the centrality of high-level visits and summits in allowing states to communicate the values and principles their strategy entails, and to convince regional and global partners to join their coalition and coordinate over policy. However, leaders face inherent constraints in spending time abroad on a regular basis, and in developing on-the-ground knowledge of their partners’ interests. This paper argues that diplomatic missions support the promotion of geopolitical strategy through regularizing communication with international audiences about its significance. Missions use information about partners’ existing membership in international institutions to reduce uncertainty amid tactical hedging, and assess their degree of geopolitical alignment. Missions then vary whether to promote the strategy in broad or specific terms, if at all; and determine which values and principles to emphasize. This calculated variance – which the paper terms “diplomatic microtargeting” – enables the inclusion or exclusion of partners based on the strategy’s geographical scope and normative intent, while offering room for flexibility as the strategy evolves. I corroborate this argument by drawing upon the promotion of Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) Strategy through 244 diplomatic missions stationed across six continents. I leverage previously untapped data from inaugural greetings and event-specific speeches delivered by Japanese ambassadors, consuls-general, and consular directors during the 2016-2025 period. Panel regression analysis provides supportive evidence that partners’ membership in the Quad, NATO, and the EU respectively explain diplomatic promotion of FOIP, its variants, and their core values and principles.