The Japanese Case: Non-European Modernity and Nationalism

Abstract

The Japanese case is doubly interesting in this project of re-examining nationalism based on the theory of multiple modernities. The Japanese case is frequently described as ‘exceptional’, ‘different’, or ‘unique’ in the studies of both modernisation and nationalism because it is customarily approached from the angle of the classical and conventional theories of modernisation. In terms of modernisation, the Japanese case is usually depicted as exceptional and unique in that it was the only non-Western society that achieved the degree of modernisation on par with Western powers by the early twentieth century. The speed with which Japanese society transformed itself from a sleepy premodern society in the backwater to one of the larger powers in the international arena — about fifty years (from the Meiji Restoration of 1868 to World War I) — is usually described as ‘unparalleled’. The process of modernisation of Japanese society is typically described as ‘catching up’ and judged to have been exogenously induced. Japanese nationalism is also seen as a response to the perceived threat from the West, as a defensive move. For instance, John Breuilly has concluded that, compared to the Chinese and Turkish cases, only ‘the Japanese case can be regarded as a case of successful reform nationalism’ (Breuilly 1982: 218), thus highlighting the ‘exceptional’ aspect of Japanese nationalism in that it has ‘caught on’ with the Western experience before other non-Western cases did.