Abstract
Certain indices serve as benchmarks for democracy. All but a tiny fringe of the Japanese people embrace the ideal of democracy and feel that they have a working democracy. Under universal suffrage of those over 20, elections are held by secret ballot to choose and change governments. Participation has been high until recently. Balloting is fair, however much the electoral system itself has needed revision. Governments reflect the nation’s priorities.1 They have brought freedom, peace, prosperity and prestige to the people. The Japanese have created a high level of resource distribution, which has fostered an open society where “If we work hard, our lives will improve accordingly.”2 The Constitution protects civil rights including free speech and assembly, enforced by a legal system, that has its singular accents. For instance, there are no political prisoners, however legal maneuvering allows for “unconvicted detention,” which keeps extremists out of society long enough to dilute their effectiveness.3 There is no official censorship. Mass media includes television critique, public debate, and one of the world’s most prolific publication industries.4 The nation has a highly trained, professional, and apolitical civil service, obedient to the nation’s economic and political welfare, although it embodies the contradiction of a free economy managed by Mandarin bureaucrats. Interest groups have wide interaction in the policy process including public-private deliberation councils called shingikai.
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Notes
T. J. Pempel, Policy and Politics in Japan: Creative Conservatism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982), p. 255–271;
T. J. Pempel ed., Uncommon Democracies: The One-Party-Dominant Regimes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), p. 3–4.
Takeshi Inagami, “The Japanese Will to Work,” in The Wheel Extended, vol. 10, n.3 (January–March 1981): p. 21–29.
For a dissenting voice see Harold R. Kerbo & John A. McKinstry, Who Rules Japan? (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995), p. 88–89, 104, 159–160.
Edward Beauchamp, “Education,” in Ishida & Krauss, eds., in Democracy in Japan, p. 225–251. Also see Thomas P. Rohlen, “Education in Japanese Society,” in Daniel I. Okimoto & Thomas P. Rohlen, eds., Inside the Japanese System: Readings on Contemporary Society and Political Economy (Stanford University Press, 1988). For a dissenting voice see Kerbo & McKinstry Who Rules Japan? p. 161–162.
Kenneth Pyle, “The Future of Japanese Nationality: Essay in Contemporary History,” in Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 8, n. 2 (summer 1982): p. 242–263; Kerbo & McKinstry, Who Rules Japan?, p. 174–176.
Ichiro Ozawa, Blueprint for a New Japan: The Rethinking of a Nation, (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1994), p. 203–204;
Miyamoto Masao, The Straightjacket Society (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1994).
Those who find further undemocratic aspects are known as “revisionists,” and include Chalmers Johnson, James Fallows, Clyde Prestowitz, and Karel van Wolferen. See James Fallows, More Like Us (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1989).
Chie Nakane, Japanese Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), p. 2–99;
Takeo Doi, The Anatomy of Dependence (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1973);
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Chalmers Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–1975 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982);
Christopher Howe, The Origins of Japanese Trade Supremacy: Development and Technology in Asia from 1540 to the Pacific War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
William Theodore de Bary, ed., Sources of the Japanese Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), p. 662.
Ito said: “The trends in our country today erroneously lead to a belief in works of the extreme liberals and radicals of England, America and France and to considering their theories the supreme norm. In having found principles and means of reversing these trends, I believe I have rendered an important service to my country, and I feel I can die a happy man.” Quoted by Jon Halliday, A Political History of Japanese Capitalism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975), p. 38–39.
For a discussion of earlier pre-democratic traits in the Tokugawa Era, see Nakane, Japanese Society; Junichi Kyogoku, The Political Dynamics of Japan (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1987);
Kazuo Kawai, Japan’s American Interlude (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960).
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Peter Calvocoressi, World Politics Since 1945 (London: Longman, 1991), p. 71–82;
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Karel van Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power, People and Politics in a stateless Nation (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1990), p. 375–395.
“But these nervous predictions were never borne out. Some observers have concluded that ideological conflict was a face-saving front to maintain organizational cohesion and to conceal backroom compromises not known to the public.” Quote: Hans H. Baerwald, Japan’s Parliament: An Introduction (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974), p. 103–120. Also Hideo Otake, “Defense Controversies and One-Party Dominance: The Opposition in Japan and West Germany,” in Pempel, ed., Uncommon Democracies, p. 128–161; George R. Packard III, Protest in Tokyo (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966);
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Gavan McCormack, The Emptiness of Japanese Affluence (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1996), p. 25–77.
Ishizaka Taizo, Chief of Keidanren, declared, “We cannot give the position to a man who is an ignorant laborer,” quoted in Van Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power, p. 111, 127–139. Also Chalmers Johnson, Japan: Who Governs: The Rise of the Developmental state (New York: Norton, 1995), p. 77–79.
Nathaniel B. Thayer, How the Conservatives Rule Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969);
Gerald L. Curtis, Election Campaigning, Japanese Style (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971).
Steven R. Weisman, “Moves by Kaifu’s Foes Leave Political Reform in Tatters,” in New York Times (2 October, 1991); Johnson, Japan: Who Governs? p. 15.
Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Oriental Mythology (New York: Penguin Books, 1976), p. 477.
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James Sterngold, “Japanese Election: Unconstitutional but Valid,” in New York Times (26 July 1993).
Barbara Rudolph, “Pop! Goes the Bubble,” in Time Magazine (2 April 1990): p. 50.
Quote: Michio Watanabe, Steven R. Weisman, New York Times, (29 December 1990): p. 3.
James Sterngold, “Beneath the Rocks on Japan Inc.’s Playing Field,” in New York Times (28 July 1991).
George J. Church, “Japan: Good-bye to the Godzilla Myth,” in Time (19 April 1993), p. 42; Japan Economic Institute, Report No. 5A.
Quote: Steven R. Weisman, “Blunt Strongman deals behind Scenes in Japan,” in New York Times (29 March 1992).
Quote: Seiroku Kajiyama in David E.Sanger, “In Tokyo Hotel Room, Political Swords Were Drawn,” in New York Times (25 June 1993).
Barbara Wanner, “Political Reform Passage Sets Stage for Shifting Alliances,” in Japan Economic Institute, Report No. 8A (Washington DC: 25 February 1994).
Steven Butler, “Eclipse of the Rising Sun,” in U.S. News and World Report (11 December 1995);
Suzan Dentzer, “Downsizing: Will East Meet West?” in U.S. News and World Report (11 December 1995).
Quote: David E. Sanger, “Issue for Japan Voters Today: How Much Change?” in New York Times (18 July 1993): p. 4.
Frank McNeil, Japanese Politics: Decay or Reform? (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1993), p. 71; J. A. A. Stockton, “Political Parties and Political Opposition,” in Ishida & Krauss, eds., Democracy in Japan, p. 102–103.
Local Autonomy College, Election System in Japan (Tokyo: Ministry of Home Affairs, 1995).
Quote: David E. Sanger, “Japanese Premier Agrees With Foes on Voting Reform,” in New York Times (29 January 1994): p. 1.
Nicholas D. Kristof, “Ex-Ruling Party Scores Comeback in Japanese Vote,” in New York Times (21 October 1996): p. 1.
Bill Emmott, The Sun also Sets: The Limits of Japan’s Economic Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. VIII.
Eamon Fingleton, Blindside (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1995), p. 5–6, 204–256.
James C. Abegglen, “Narrow Self-Interest: Japan’s Ultimate Vulnerability?” in Diane Tasca, ed., United States-Japanese Economic Relations: Cooperation, Competition, and Confrontation (New York: Pergamon Press, 1980), p. 21–31.
Michael H. Armacost, Friends or Rivals? The Insider’s Account of U.S.-Japan Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996);
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David E. Sanger, “Mighty MITI Loses Its Grip,” in New York Times (9 July 1989): p. 1, Section 3. Also “In a certain sense MITI is a classic example of a bureaucracy that has pursued suicidally successful policies. The ministry is like a poverty agency that has succeeded in eliminating poverty.”
Quote from C. Johnson, “MITI and Japanese International Economic Policy” in R. A. Scalapino, ed., The Foreign Policy of Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 23–45.
Edward A. Feigenbaum & Pamela McCorduck, Fifth Generation: Artificial Intelligence and Japan’s Computer Challenge to the World (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1983);
Scott Callon, Divided Sun: MITI and the Breakdown of Japanese High-Tech Industrial Policy, 1975–1993 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995).
Quote: James Sterngold, “In Japan, the Clamor for Change Runs Headlong Into Old Groove,” in New York Times (3 January 1995);
Edmund L. Andrews, “A Blunt Economist in Japan Emerges as Mr. Yen,” in New York Times (16 September 1995). Also “Too much deregulation would create great confusion, you could destroy things that are thousands of years old.” “It’s naked market forces against cultures. It would be the end of Japanese-style capitalism if we pushed this kind of change too far. Japan would be split, as America is split.” “If [advocates of Americanism] believe in the universal value of Americanism, the ‘reform’ they are attempting is nothing but an act of barbarism against our own national cultural values.”
George B. Sansom, Japan: A Short Cultural History (New York: Appleton-Cen-tury-Crofts, 1943), p. 14–15.
J. L. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (New York: Prager, 1960).
W. T. de Bary, ed., Sources of the Japanese Tradition, p. 580; Van Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power, p. 293; plus footnote on Thomas R. H. Havens, Farm and Nation in Modern Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), p. 25–26, 42–45.
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© 1999 Marco Rimanelli
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Horgan, J.P. (1999). Politics, Culture, and Democratic Reform in Japan. In: Rimanelli, M. (eds) Comparative Democratization and Peaceful Change in Single-Party-Dominant Countries. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780312292676_7
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