This dissertation examines the institutional history of the Japan Foundation by focusing on three crucial moments of emergence: 1934, the year in which the Japan Foundation's predecessor, Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai, was established; 1972, the year in which the Japan Foundation was established; and 1989, the year in which the Japan Foundation began to expand globally. The Japan Foundation and its predecessor emerged at moments of crises and opportunity for the Japanese nation-state: crises because the political and economic contradictions inherent in the capitalist system of representation came to the fore, potentially calling into question the legitimacy of the government as a representative of the Japanese nation; and opportunity because the changes in the conditions of the global political economy at these three moments enabled the Japanese nation-state to forge ahead and represent its interests internationally in new and evolving ways.This dissertation contends that the Japan Foundation and Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai, were established or expanded at these moments of crises in order to assist the Japanese nation-state to mediate its interests domestically (in the name of national interests to address purportedly national-cultural problematics) and internationally (in the name of a "cultural mission" to advance the universal ideals of "the welfare of humanity," "world culture," and "world peace"). The three moments of emergence investigated in this dissertation thus marked important moments of transition from nationalisms to imperialisms, moments at which the aestheticisation of politics and the discourses of national victimhood in Japan became enabling forces in the mobilisation of the will to imperialism. In the 1930s, national cultural crises were articulated in terms of cultural conflicts between Japan/the Orient and the West, which was equated with capitalism and modernity; in the 1970s and 1980s, however, national cultural crises were articulated in terms of a triumphant Japanese capitalism and modernity vis-a-vis its Euro-American counterparts. The unprecedented global expansion of the Japan Foundation from 1989 onward signalled that 1989 marked a moment of transition from an older form of imperialism at work during the time of Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai, to a newer form of imperialism at work today.