![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
From a historical perspective, the welfare net in Japan was established from above without democratic participation and expanded only slowly. This expansion in many cases was aimed at enhancing national cohesion, especially during war time. During the current neoliberal era, Japan’s paternalistic welfare state has been able to put into practice the dismantling of national pension and health-care systems without the need for any theoretical re-orientation. In response, counter-publics have engaged in protest and resistance. By doing so, the victims of modernization and those who are socially weak and disadvantaged in multiple ways are able to regain their self-esteem and personal integrity.
Acknowledgment
This article has been translated from German into English by Iwo Amelung, of Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Löwith Citation1964, 219.
2 Eisenstadt Citation1996, 36.
3 Crouch Citation2005.
4 Still helpful and enlightening in regard to the topic of multiple modernities is the work of scholars such as Eisenstadt Citation2000, Citation2007, as well as Sachsenmaier, Riedel, and Eisenstadt Citation2002.
5 Wagner Citation1994.
6 This has been shown by the sociologist Ichinokawa Citation2006.
7 Parallels can be found in Germany such as the Merkelsche Bad in Esslingen, Württemberg. At such places normally ruthless entrepreneurs collaborated with state authorities responsible for taking care of the poor population.
8 This relationship has been described and analyzed by Inoue Citation2013, 159–160.
9 On the topic of Thema Siemens in Japan, see the work of Takenaka Citation1996. Because of the limited availability of sources on this corruption case (known in Japan as the “Siemens-case”), it has not been treated in a more systematic way.
10 After his return to the United States, Morse was consistently elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
11 This quote is found in Bagehot Citation1873, 61. It also appeared in various British and American Newspapers in the following form: “The ultimate question between every two human beings is, can I kill thee, or canst thou kill me?” The Tokutomi quote is found in Mishima and Schwentker Citation2015, 114. I thank Robin Weichert for identifying this latter quote.
12 The sustained wrath about the colonial expansion of the West common in Japan in the first part of the twentieth century has not disappeared. Indeed, this remains prevalent until today, as seen in a 2015 speech by the current Prime Minister, Abe Shinzô, on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the Japanese capitulation in World War II:
More than one hundred years ago, vast colonies possessed mainly by the Western powers stretched out across the world. With their overwhelming supremacy in technology, waves of colonial rule surged towards Asia in the nineteenth century. There is no doubt that the resultant sense of crisis drove Japan forward to achieve modernization. Japan built a constitutional government earlier than any other nation in Asia. The country preserved its independence throughout. The Japan-Russia War gave encouragement to many people under colonial rule from Asia to Africa.
13 Giddens Citation1994, 134–144.
14 As seen, for example, in a proposal in April 1969 by U.S. President Richard Nixon, a Republican, for the American federal government to provide a guaranteed basic income for all citizens. See Gordon Citation2014.
15 Andersen-Esping Citation1990, 108.
16 Hiromatsu Citation1990 and Anzô Citation1967. In the latter the following sentence can be found: “The Welfare state is nothing but a variation of capitalist state in its final form” (Anzô Citation1967, 6). An expert on constitutional theory in Japan, Naoki Kobayasi, has argued that in the Japanese Constitution social rights function as “damage-repairing of capitalism and contributing to the stabilization of the capitalist system” (Naoki Citation1962, 263).
17 Nishitani Citation1989, 163.
18 On the Minamata disease, see Harada Citation1995. Extreme mercury poisoning was uncovered in Minamata city in Kumamoto prefecture in 1956 and was soon traced to wastewater released into Minamata Bay by a local chemical factory owned by the Chisso Corporation. Despite this early discovery, the factory continued to release untreated wastewater into the Bay until 1968. Approximately 1800 local deaths eventually were attributed to mercury poisoning.
19 http://www.moj.go.jp/JINKEN/index_keihatsu.html (accessed December 3, 2015).
20 This enterprise, called Chisso, was deeply involved in the industrialization of the Korean peninsula, annexed by Japan from 1910 until 1945.
21 Eisenstadt Citation1996, 36.
22 Asahi Newspaper, evening edition, June 29, 2011. This doctor, Mr Maszumi Harada, never managed to obtain a full professorship. His peers blocked his call to such a position. He was too much against the interests of the enterprises and also against the medical lobby.
23 Asahi Newspaper, September 23, 2011. See also: http://www.asahi.com/special/10005/TKY201109220748.html (accessed April 3, 2016).
24 Cf. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korruptionswahrnehmungsindex (accessed November 15, 2015).
25 U Sokkun Citation2014. The ship here metaphorically stands for Korea, which the simple man from the street cannot easily leave, similar to the sinking ferry from which it was impossible to escape.
26 Eisenstadt Citation1996, 43.
27 Eisenstadt Citation1996, 1.
28 The concept of a “façade democracy” (German Fassadendemokratie) was coined by Jürgen Habermas in an article he co-authored with P. Bofinger and J. Nida-Rümelin. See Habermas, Bofinger, and Nida-Rümelin Citation2012.
29 Eisenstadt Citation1996, 157.
30 On August 17, 1949, a passenger train derailed in Fukushima Prefecture, and three crew members died. Twenty people, most of whom were railway workers associated with the Japanese Communist Party, were arrested and charged with sabotage. Although seventeen of these defendants were initially convicted, all were subsequently acquitted on appeal.
31 Ishimure Citation1995, 10.
32 Ishimure Citation1995, 358.
33 Ishimure Citation2015, 75.
34 Ôe’s representation of heroic physicians clearly was influenced by Albert Camus’ portrayal of the chief physician in his novel La Peste [The Plague], 1947.This tendency for literary canonization can be observed in Korea as well. The Korean sociologist Shin Jin-Wook submitted his PhD dissertation at Free University Berlin with the title “Modernisation and Civil Society in South-Korea – On the Dynamics of Violence and Sacrality in Modern Politics” (published in German as Shin Citation2005). I am interested in his use of the word “sacrality” in his title. The author analyses how those killed for political reasons and those suppressed during the long period of dictatorship in post-war South Korea attained sacrality in the eyes of the public. Shin shows how this sacrality is put into play against the sacrality of the (Korean) national community as a community of blood, proclaimed by the regime. Mr Shin also shows that sacrality may be a double-edged sword, since protest movements also may use it in an instrumental way.
35 Ishimure Citation2015, 363.
36 Ishimure Citation2015, 363.
37 Wagô Ryôichi Citation2011. See: http://apjjf.org/2011/9/29/Wago-Ryoichi/3568/article.html.
38 This went so far, that a contact between the Empress and the author Ishimure Michiko was established, which resulted in the Emperor and his wife visiting people suffering from the Minamata disease. To some extent this can be seen as an offer for reconciliation.
39 Habermas Citation2013, 183.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Ken’ichi Mishima
Ken’ichi Mishima, one of the leading mediators of critical theory in East Asia, is Professor of Social Philosophy at Tokyo Keizai University, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Osaka, and a member of the international advisory board of the Institut für Sozialforschung [Institute for Social Research] in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. In addition to translating various works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Theodor Adorno and Jürgen Habermas into Japanese, Professor Mishima is the author of dozens of articles and other publications.