Sasamoto-Collins, Hiromi

2018-05-22T12:47:50Z

2018-05-22T12:47:50Z

2005

This inquiry into the thought of three political thinkers in pre-war Japan is motivated by a concern of our own time: the absence of credible opposition in the present-day political system. The widely accepted view is that Japanese society is "conformist", and the pressure for conformity comes from traditions and cultural norms. My general position in this dissertation is that very often conformity is not only a matter of inherent cultural norms but is a political and social force appropriated, strengthened and enforced by those in power: the weak tradition of public debate has historical foundations.

However, mainstream historiography (Marxism and the school of modernisation theory), rarely pays attention to one of the most significant motors of dissent, the tension between authority and the individual, especially as it was exacerbated by the Meiji Restoration. I therefore hope to engage with previous accounts in the following ways. The first concerns definitions of modernisation, and the other, methodological, is concerned with the relations between individual and society. To highlight the role of the general populace in the emergence of political modernisation, I borrow from Jiirgen Habermas his concept of a civil society and his investigation of the transformation of the "public" sphere. I also employ methodological perspectives based on the cultural theory of Raymond Williams, with his emphasis on the material dynamics of social change.

To examine the mechanics of opposition in pre-war Japan based on this combination of definition and methodology, I focus on the careers of three prominent "dissidents": Minobe Tatsukichi (1873-1948), a constitutional scholar, Sakai Toshihiko (1870-1933), a socialist reformer, and Saito Takao (1870-1949), an opposition member of Parliament. All three were outspoken critics of discretionary power, and realised that the Meiji Restoration by no means ensured a civil society. Nevertheless post-Restoration Japan witnessed drastic changes in the forms of authority and in the people's engagement with them. Hence all three were articulate critics of government, and witnessed, recorded, and participated in those changes through their writings and political activities. The dissertation traces the contributions of each to the emergence of a Japanese civil society, and examines the viability of liberal positions within a period of highly "engineered" social change.

http://hdl.handle.net/1842/30721

The University of Edinburgh

Annexe Thesis Digitisation Project 2018 Block 19

Already catalogued

Three modern Japanese dissenters: Minobe Tatsukichi, Sakai Toshihiko and Saitô Takao

Thesis or Dissertation

Doctoral

PhD Doctor of Philosophy