Cambridge Companion to Modern Japanese Culture
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164 Stephen Covell
Notes
1. See, for example, Shimazono (2004); Nobutaka Inoue (1991); Ishii (1997); Jaffe (2001);
Hardacre (1997); Reader and Tanabe (1998); Davis (1992).
2. For a general introduction to the religions of Japan see Earhart (1982) and Ellwood
(2007).
3. Vlastos (1998).
4. Vlastos (1998: 3).
5. Jonathan Z Smith (1998: 269).
6. Jonathan Z Smith (1998: 281).
7. Jonathan Z Smith (1998: 269).
8. Hardacre (1986: 7–9).
9. See, for example, Shimazono and Tsuroka (2004).
10. Covell and Rowe (2004). See also Sharf (1995: 417–58).
11. Covell and Rowe (2004: 246).
12. Covell and Rowe (2004: 247); Ivy (1995).
13. Grapard (1984: 240–65).
14. Ketelaar (1990).
15.
Hardacre (1984).
16. Shimazono
(2004).
17. See Jaffe (2001).
18. See Covell (2005).
19. Ketelaar (1990:x).
20. Many thanks to Sarah Horton for sharing her ideas on this at the American Academy
of Religion annual conference in 2007.
21. Fridell (1973).
22. The Lotus Sutra is a Buddhist sacred text that is one of the most popular such texts in
East Asia (Shimazono, 2004: 78).
23. Shimazono (2004: 51); Tsushima, Nishiyama, Shimazono and Shiramizu (1979: 139–
61).
24. Shimazono (2004: 123–4).
25. Kisala (1999: 3).
26. Reader and Tanabe (1998).
27. Reader (1991: 15).
28. Davis (1992: 236).
29. Earhart (1982).
30. See Arai (1999). Nuns are permitted to marry but few choose to do so.
31. See Covell (2005).
32. Hardacre (1984: 196–7).
33. Shimazono (2004
: 233).
34. Shimazono
(2004: 275).
35. Shimazono (2004: 278).
36. Shimazono (2004: 78).
37. Rowe (2006).
38. Rowe (2003: 112–13).
39. See, for example, Shimazono (2004: 174).
40. Sugawara (1997: 9).
41. Sugawara (1997: 9).
Religious culture 165
42. Tetsuji It
¯
o(2004: 8). The phrase ‘Ningen no chikara wo koeta mono’ (that which is
beyond human power) is used directly within the ‘Kokoro no N
¯
oto’ series, see for
example, Ministry of Education (ed.) (2002).
Further reading
Reader, Ian (1991), Religion in Contemporary Japan, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i
Press.
Reader, Ian, and George Tanabe (1998), Practically Religious: Worldly Benefits and the
Common Religion of Japan, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Shimazono, Susumu (2004), From Salvation to Spirituality: Popular Religious Movements
in Modern Japan, Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press.
takashi inoguchi
9
Political culture
The debate over Japanese political culture
Political culture is defined as a set of memories and identities, norms and
values, beliefs and preferences, and practices and habits present in a cer-
tain community of people.
1
Thus defined, political culture is a patterned
approach to thinking about politics. Politics, in turn, is defined as who gets
what, when and how,
2
or as the authoritative allocation of values.
3
In this
way political culture is shaped and shared by a certain group of people with
common memories and experiences.
This chapter will first focus on Japanese political culture in terms of vari-
ations and diversity. Key themes include social capital, pacifism, authoritar-
ianism, postmodernism and political ideologies. Sociological attributes by
which variations are assessed include region, generation, class and uncer-
tainty. The chapter will then outline a very long-term view of change in
Japanese political culture since the late medieval period, focusing on a few
noted artists in terms of individualist and collectivist orientations. Since
collectivism is widely regarded as a key component of modern Japanese
political culture, historically contextualising collectivism in Japanese soci-
ety is a task of high importance. Further, comparisons will be made between
Japan’s political culture and that of other countries, most notably those of
East and South-East Asia and Western Europe, using the survey data of
the AsiaBarometer Survey
4
and the Asia-Europe Survey.
5
The study
of modern Japanese political culture has often been conducted either holis-
tically in reference to various features of Japanese nature, history, society,
economy and politics or in implicit comparison to what Western authors
regard as Western political culture. It is very important to situate mod-
ern Japanese political culture in systematic comparison to non-Japanese
Political culture 167
political cultures, near or far. The thematic foci of these comparative sur-
veys are: citizens’ identity, trust and satisfaction vis-
`
a-vis the state and family
values. Finally, two cautionary remarks about the study of political culture
will be presented.
Variations and diversity of Japanese political culture
Japanese society is often said to be based on the relative homogeneity of cul-
ture. The immense variations that exist, but which are not easily detected in
part because of methodological difficulties, are often forgotten. The regional
variations of social capital or trust in interpersonal relations, for instance,
from prefecture to prefecture or from city to city, are not well surveyed.
6
Yet the pattern of regional distribution of oreore sagi (money extraction
through telephone scams) is rather revealing. Oreore sagi involves a tele-
phone call from a deceiver informing his/her victim that, for example, their
child hit someone with a car, that the deceiver represents the injured party’s
interests, and that the victim must immediately deposit a certain amount
of money into the following bank account to resolve the case. Osaka, the
centre of the Kansai region, is known as one of the regions where oreore
sagi takes place least in Japan. People in Osaka apparently tend to be most
cautious and suspicious, and tend to believe the adage that ‘one cannot be
too careful in dealing with people’ rather than adopting the attitude that
‘on the whole one can trust people’.
7
Robert Putnam’s
8
intra-nation com-
parison between southern and northern-central Italy might well be made
between the regions of Kansai and Kanto.
Variations among generations are also extensive. The major line of
demarcation can be drawn between those schooled prior to 1945 and those
thereafter. The former generation retains a strong preference for pacifism
and anti-authoritarianism, while the latter tends to be politically more placid
and compliant. Taking advantage of the increasing demographic dominance
of generations who did not experience the Second World War, former Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe strove to implement policies that would mark new
departures from the postwar regime, an approach largely designed to over-
come what he regards as excessive pacifism and anti-authoritarianism, two
negative syndromes coming out of the experience and memory of the Second
World War.
9
Within the postwar group, the schooling of the demograph-
ically densest groups born in the immediate post-1945 years and those
thereafter is so different that they show contrasting orientations. The for-
mer group, the so-called dankai (a massive demographic cluster), exhibits
168 Takashi Inoguchi
strong energy and enthusiasm in their activities, whereas those born there-
after tend to be quiet and cool. For much of the 1945–65 period, primary
schools accommodated on average 60 pupils per class, compared to the cur-
rent average of 30 to 40 pupils per class. In the former situation, competition
for food and friends was severe among pupils and extended, among other
areas, into the examination process and athletic activities. The post-1965
groups that grew up in an affluent Japan do not show a similar level of
‘hungry spirit’.
One of the areas where generational disparities are least pronounced
is post-materialism, characterised by a lifestyle that stresses such values
as individual freedom, gender equality, ecological harmony, a social safety
net and social justice. Citizens have passed the stage of materialism where
survival overrides all other considerations and have moved on to the stage
of post-materialism where lifestyle is key to their satisfaction. The tran-
sition from materialism to post-materialism was slow and steady. Joji
Watanuki
10
reports that compared to the preference for pacifism and anti-
authoritarianism, generational differences regarding post-materialism were
indistinct. In other words, the degree to which the post-materialist lifestyle
permeated Japan does not exhibit large generational differences.
Variations among classes are no less noteworthy. In the 1945–75 period,
class differences mattered.
11
In terms of political ideology, those highly edu-
cated, those belonging to unions, and those residing in metropolitan areas
tended to be on the left, whereas those poorly educated, those possessing
their own land and rice paddies, shops and factories, and those residing
in non-metropolitan areas tended to be on the right. The ideological left
signifies pacifism, union rights, anti-alliance and anti-patriotism, whereas
the ideological right indicates self-defence, free enterprise, pro-alliance and
patriotism. The Allied Powers’ Occupation led to the expansion of the right-
wing political parties, which later merged to become the Liberal Democratic
Party with farmers and shop and factory owners as its support base. The
Occupation reforms also helped to expand the left-wing parties supported
by unionists, citizen groups, intellectuals and pacifists, mainly based in
cities. At the parliamentary level, this dichotomy was conducive to the
consolidation of the so-called 1955 system in which the LDP governed
uninterruptedly until 1993 and the Japan Socialist Party had to put up with
their semi-permanent major opposition party status.
From the mid-1970s onwards, the patterns changed somewhat. Union
membership drastically decreased. Owners of land, rice paddies, shops
and factories also dramatically reduced in number. In addition, the per
Political culture 169
capita income level increased significantly. This configuration created
what is called the all-inclusionary middle class mass phenomenon
12
of
the 1975–90 period. All these factors have made the left–right distinc-
tion less pronounced in politics and in terms of political support in vot-
ing and other types of political participation.
13
What was then called
the new middle mass (shin ch
¯
ukan taish
¯
u) became far more stratified.
Although the class-based distinction between left-wing and right-wing ide-
ologies have been moderated immensely, collectivist and authoritarian val-
ues on the one hand and social and economic networks on the other have
remained two key factors that determine party support patterns during this
period.
Between 1990 and the present, as part of the tide of globalisation gen-
erating the extremities of rich and poor, income gaps have increased sig-
nificantly, elevating the Japanese GINI index to be among the highest in
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development group.
14
A
new class of ‘working poor’ has sprung up, and concerns about both their
health and wealth have intensified.
15
Furthermore, there is a steady rise in
the ‘personalization of politics’
16
characterised by: (1) the increasing impor-
tance of politicians’ personal appeal; (2) the growing emphasis on popular
catch phrases and slogans, as disseminated by mass media and the internet;
(3) the declining weight of political parties as mobilising forces and focal
points of politics; and (4) the decreasing significance of national bureau-
cracies.
17
It seems that uncertainty is the key variable here. There are two
types of voters: those facing uncertainty and risk with a modicum of opti-
mism, on the one hand, and those hesitant to move forward, on the other.
Old social and economic networks and collectivist authoritarian value pref-
erences do remain important, but increasingly less so. This phenomenon
is not confined to Japan, but is observable globally. Not only Tony Blair
and Silvio Berlusconi, but also Shinawatra Thaksin and Junichir
¯
o Koizumi
are the embodiment and therefore the vindication of the personalisation of
politics. In tandem, political culture transforms.
Cultural change since the Meiji era
Given that the debate over Japanese political culture centres upon compet-
ing emphases on collectivism and individualism, it is useful to glimpse these
shifting emphases in a brief analysis of the work of four Japanese repre-
sentative artists. The artists to be discussed are Ikky
¯
u Sojun, Chikamatsu
Monzaemon, Natsume S
¯
oseki and Murakami Haruki.
170 Takashi Inoguchi
Ikky
¯
u was a Buddhist monk and a poet in the 16th century. Many of
his poems feature the theme of falling in love with nuns. His emotions
and preferences were eloquently expressed in poems, none of which exhibit
a hint of collectivism. He was writing at a time of individualism. During
the medieval and warring periods, what mattered most was individualism.
For warriors what was of importance was what Ikegami
18
calls ‘honorific
individualism’. For artists at Kyoto what mattered was art-tested civility.
19
Honorific individualism is a type of mental and cultural orientation that
places self-esteem at the height of one’s judgment and that stresses self-
reliance or one’s own capacity to defend this orientation. Art-tested civility
is a form of mental and cultural orientation that singles out high-level artistic
sophistication on the basis of one’s own endeavours. During this era, divorce
was common, and was often initiated by wives.
Chikamatsu, a novelist for the masses, had amassed his wealth and
secured his position by the early 18th century. The early modern soci-
ety of Japan was a mix of decentralisation akin to medieval societies and
centralisation akin to modern societies. At the height of the Tokugawa
family’s reign, it permitted, except in the areas of defence, diplomacy, and
external commerce, near autonomy to 300-odd domains. Yet the tide of
centralisation in the form of tighter control over differences in social status
steadily permeated Tokugawa society. From this point comes the key motif
of Chikamatsu novels: Protagonists torn between social obligations and
human sentiments. The former collectivist motive often overrode the latter
individualist one. The only way to avoid the dilemma was shinj
¯
u, or double
suicide by the lovers.
S
¯
oseki, a novelist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was a professor
of English. During his studies in London he was depressed by his new
environment. Back in Japan, he was intermittently depressed for one reason
or another. He wrote novels essentially about the inner private self. Only
when he was writing about this inner private self, did he feel at ease. Novels
prevailing during the increasingly centralist state penetration were called
shish
¯
osetsu, or I-novels. S
¯
oseki can be called a state-suppressed individualist
who immersed himself in the inner private self.
Murakami, a novelist of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, writes
about his inner cosmos. Characters who appear in his novels enjoy encoun-
tering others in cosy settings. The active movements of memory of others
and sentiments associated with them are key themes. The leitmotif of his
novels preceded the neuroscientific discovery of the ‘monkey-see, monkey-
do’ theory in which the monkey sees a human subject’s movement and its
Political culture 171
memory is activated causing its muscles to move.
20
Hischaractersareall
individualist par excellence. They are interested in the inner self, but they
are also open and associate with others. That is one of the reasons why
Murakami’s novels are bestsellers almost everywhere in the world.
As these artists – each of whom typifies their era – show, culture is not
a fixed matter. In a sense, it is a complex and living collection of people’s
memories and habits. Over the centuries people change. Since collectivism
is fairly firmly regarded as a key feature in the study of modern Japanese
political culture, it is very important to understand collectivism (and indi-
vidualism) over a long time span. Furthermore, as collectivism (along with
authoritarianism) is a key component of modern Japanese political culture,
its importance and the need to understand it across long-term political
changes in Japanese society cannot be overemphasised.
To see more clearly how Japanese cultural change occurred in the last
few centuries, a comparison between Tokugawa Japan (1603–1867)and
Elizabethan England will be useful. The late medieval days of the warring
period in Japan exhibited extreme individualism because hereditary sta-
tus and class differences came to naught when competition was cut-throat.
Strength was what mattered. The early modern period of Tokugawa brought
some order and the tide of centralisation. But Tokugawa Japan, which was
highly decentralised, was unlike Tudor England under Elizabeth, which
exhibited absolutism, the highest degree of the will to centralise or con-
centrate power.
21
In Tokugawa Japan, the Tokugawa family allowed a large
degree of autonomy to 300-odd domains. It was a bit like federalism, with
the Tokugawa handling defence, diplomacy and external commerce. All the
domains were autonomous as far as domestic politics were concerned.
22
In
England, absolutism was maintained under the Tudors and the succeeding
Stuart dynasty as well, although the monarchy faced increasing challenges
from parliament and other social forces. These challenges forced absolutism
to steadily transform itself in the direction of liberalism and democracy over
subsequent centuries. In Japan, the Tokugawa Shogunate consolidated this
quasi-federal system until the advent of the Western challenge.
Yet the Japanese response to this challenge did not result in an extreme
concentration of power in the Emperor. When the Meiji Restoration
occurred, the class distinction separating warriors, artisans, merchants and
peasants was abolished. Most warriors were dismissed and channelled into
state service jobs within the government. Those without jobs became politi-
cians, businessmen or journalists. The way in which this bureaucratic
recruitment took place was to reconstruct a quasi-federal system at the
172 Takashi Inoguchi
height of the new central government in Japan in the mid and late 19th cen-
tury. Ministries recruited bureaucrats, often on the basis of domains. Once
the government was set up and ministries had selected ministers, the min-
isters then recruited like-minded ex-warriors from their home domains. To
consolidate their power, each bureaucratic agency was quasi-autonomous.
Thus the Army was largely drawn from the Ch
¯
osh
¯
u domain, and the Navy
from the Satsuma domain. Police were often from the Higo and Aizu-
Wakamatsu domains, while the Accounting Office was primarily drawn
from the Hizen domain. The Meiji Restoration repeated what the Pax Toku-
gawana had achieved, that is, the containment and retention of decentralised
power within the regime. Thus the Meiji Constitution gave an enormous
amount of power to each bureaucratic agency by the veto rights accorded to
each cabinet minister on all cabinet decisions. The prime minister remained
only slightly more than a primus inter pares. However, the state-society
relationship was extremely centralised. Each bureaucratic agency had its
local bureaus through which its policy action was implemented. Therefore
the picture of modern Japan was complex. At the height of the central gov-
ernment, power was fragmented and decentralised. Yet each bureaucratic
agency maintained its centralised power right down to the ground level.
Under this regime, collectivism progressed, with state power being visible
and tangible at the community level.
Two examples may be used to illustrate the absence of absolutist culture
in Japanese politics.
23
The first case refers to the situation which started in
September 2007, when Prime Minister Shinz
¯
o Abe was hospitalised imme-
diately after he announced his resignation. He remained there for the ensu-
ing two weeks without appointing an acting prime minister. This led the
Financial Times to comment that Japan might be governed without a prime
minister.
24
The second example can be taken from the way in which the
succeeding Prime Minister, Yasuo Fukuda, adopted a low-key posture vis-
`
a-vis the major opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, which held
a majority in the House of Councillors. To reactivate the Law of Supply-
ing Petroleum to fighter aircraft of the United States, the United Kingdom
and Pakistan in their war against terror in Afghanistan, set to expire on
31 October 2007, Fukuda could have legislated, as prescribed in the Con-
stitution, a revised law that extended the deadline by passing it twice in
the House of Representatives, where the Liberal Democratic Party held a
comfortable majority. He did not. Instead, he waited about two months
during which he made an overture to Ichir
¯
o Ozawa, the Opposition leader,
to form a grand coalition between the Liberal Democratic Party and the
Political culture 173
Democratic Party of Japan. After Ozawa was blocked from forming a grand
coalition by seven lieutenants in his own party, Fukuda proceeded to pass
a revised law by passing it twice in the House of Representatives, immedi-
ately after the House of Councillors said nay to it. Fukuda did not legislate
a revised law immediately on ascension to power, although its legislation
was urgently needed for the Japanese government to demonstrate its strong
commitment to the US alliance. These two examples provide a glimpse of
the lack of an absolutist legacy in Japan.
The Japanese pattern shows a stark contrast with England, where abso-
lutism was consolidated. It was challenged, and yet state power – whether an
absolutist monarch or a parliamentary umbrella – remained solid, as Michael
Mann shows so vividly.
25
In Japan, the floundering of the first absolutist
attempt seems to have determined the nature of the regime for a surpris-
ingly long period of time. Following the Tokugawa regime’s quasi-federal
system, the Meiji regime concentrated its power vis-
`
a-vis society, but at the
height of the regime state power was fragmented and decentralised with
each bureaucratic agency retaining its autonomy. The new Showa regime
after 1945 did not change the overall picture of central control over society
and of power fragmentation and power sharing at the top of the govern-
ment. The centralisation of power to the state was reduced only gradually
by the increased introduction of the market and the accommodation of its
liberalising and globalising influences, especially in the Heisei period from
1988 to the present. The continuous existence of a quasi-federal system
seems to make regime change less dramatic to political life in Japan.
Cultural change in politics took place in a particular fashion: from the
barefoot individualism of the late 16th century to moderate collectivism
during the gradual consolidation of central control in the early 18th cen-
tury; to further modern collectivism under the Meiji and Showa govern-
ments, peaking in the mid-20th century; and to new collectivism under
the new Constitution of the late Showa regime, peaking in 1991; then,
finally, to the gradual individualism of Heisei Japan from 1988 onwards.
In a sense Japanese culture is extraordinarily like a sponge: absorbing envi-
ronmental and exogenous stimuli and transforming itself accordingly. The
above shifts from individualism to collectivism of many kinds and currently
back towards individualism exemplify this process. The transition from late
medieval to early modern, from early modern to modern, and from modern
to postmodern periods in Japan did not seem to be drastic or earth shaking.
Thus, one can say that the absence of absolutism in Japan seems to give
more continuity to Japanese cultural change.
26