German Institute for Japanese Studies, Tokyo (DIJ) Podcast

This presentation engages claims that since 9/11 Japanese public opinion has turned sharply away from pacifism and toward supporting normalization of Japan's military power, in which Japanese troops would fight alongside their American counterparts in global conflicts. Midford argues that Japanese public opinion has never embraced pacifism. It has, instead, contained significant elements of realism, in that it has acknowledged the utility of military power for defending national territory and independence, but has seen offensive military power as ineffective for promoting other goals – such as suppressing terrorist networks and WMD proliferation, or promoting democracy overseas. Gradually, these realist attitudes have become more evident as the Japanese state has convinced its public that Tokyo and its military can be trusted with territorial defense, and even with noncombat humanitarian and reconstruction missions overseas. On this basis, we should re-conceptualize Japanese public opinion as attitudinal defensive realism. Finally, this presentation considers the evolution of public opinion toward security under DPJ rule.

During the two "lost decades" Japan's industry has been working as hard as ever. Companies had to adapt to the changing and decreasing demand of the ageing economy, work off inflated prices through cost-cutting, and jump from their mature growth markets (in the US) into emerging markets (in Asia). The success of the exercise is reflected clearly in the data: deflation has brought down producer prices to international levels; high paying manufacturing jobs for the old have been replaced by low paying service jobs for the young; emerging country exports are now three times higher than exports to the US; and the yen is among the strongest currencies in the world.

What had been "lost" during this workout, however, is the life-blood of growth and success: effective innovation, career opportunities for the young, global integration, and most forms of "future" investment. Will they return? Certainly. By looking at long-term (investment) trends, the presentation will show that Japan currently seems to be at a turning point from two decades of cutting back and restructuring to more future-oriented investment in domestic services and Asian markets. While taking a decisively positive perspective on Japan's potential, however, it will also be shown which head winds of globalization are currently blowing in Asia's increasingly competitive markets.

During the two "lost decades" Japan's industry has been working as hard as ever. Companies had to adapt to the changing and decreasing demand of the ageing economy, work off inflated prices through cost-cutting, and jump from their mature growth markets (in the US) into emerging markets (in Asia). The success of the exercise is reflected clearly in the data: deflation has brought down producer prices to international levels; high paying manufacturing jobs for the old have been replaced by low paying service jobs for the young; emerging country exports are now three times higher than exports to the US; and the yen is among the strongest currencies in the world. What had been "lost" during this workout, however, is the life-blood of growth and success: effective innovation, career opportunities for the young, global integration, and most forms of "future" investment. Will they return? Certainly. By looking at long-term (investment) trends, the presentation will show that Japan currently seems to be at a turning point from two decades of cutting back and restructuring to more future-oriented investment in domestic services and Asian markets. While taking a decisively positive perspective on Japan's potential, however, it will also be shown which head winds of globalization are currently blowing in Asia's increasingly competitive markets.

In this forum we will present case studies from our research on family happiness in Japan and Germany. Carried out by international research teams from Free University Berlin and Kyoto University, this study presents transnational and transdisciplinary ethnographic findings.Some of the main research questions are: How do people experience family happiness and when do they feel happy? In what way do narratives influence and create feelings of happiness in families? What sorts of ritual performances do family members use to create feelings of togetherness and happiness? What is the role of religious practices, gifts, and meals for the creation of communal feelings and of feelings of happiness at family celebrations? To answer these questions, we research how German families celebrate Christmas and how Japanese families celebrate the New Year's holiday. We want to find out what the similarities and differences are in the staging of "happiness" in Japanese and German families and identify transcultural elements of happiness in families. These include elaborate dinners, exchanges of gifts, religious practices, collective narratives, time spent together, etc.

In this forum we will present case studies from our research on family happiness in Japan and Germany. Carried out by international research teams from Free University Berlin and Kyoto University, this study presents transnational and transdisciplinary ethnographic findings.Some of the main research questions are: How do people experience family happiness and when do they feel happy? In what way do narratives influence and create feelings of happiness in families? What sorts of ritual performances do family members use to create feelings of togetherness and happiness? What is the role of religious practices, gifts, and meals for the creation of communal feelings and of feelings of happiness at family celebrations? To answer these questions, we research how German families celebrate Christmas and how Japanese families celebrate the New Year's holiday. We want to find out what the similarities and differences are in the staging of "happiness" in Japanese and German families and identify transcultural elements of happiness in families. These include elaborate dinners, exchanges of gifts, religious practices, collective narratives, time spent together, etc.

This presentation examines race and the Obamamania phenomenon in Japan, particularly during Barack Obama's presidential campaign and continuing through 2010. Obama has been wildly popular in Japan, with best-selling books of his speeches as English-speaking lessons, a rural town sharing the same name ("Obama" in Fukui prefecture) re-branding itself with his literal image on souvenir goods, and the coinage of the term "Obamajority" by the mayor of Hiroshima Tadatoshi Akiba upon the 64th anniversary of the bombing of his city to refer to the "majority of people and nations" who want to eliminate nuclear weapons. Obama's many fans in Japan have adopted his two slogans - "Yes we can!" and "Change" - as rallying cries for social and political reform. When asked, many of these fans claim that Obama's race (whether African American or mixed) plays little or no part in his image or popularity, and that he thus heralds the possibility and acceptability of a "post-racial" figure.

How is Obama's purported post-raciality inflected by the persistence of blood ideology in contemporary Japan? This presentation is a preliminary talk-through of issues surrounding "post-race" as part of my ongoing research on Obamamania in Japan.

This presentation examines race and the Obamamania phenomenon in Japan, particularly during Barack Obama's presidential campaign and continuing through 2010. Obama has been wildly popular in Japan, with best-selling books of his speeches as English-speaking lessons, a rural town sharing the same name ("Obama" in Fukui prefecture) re-branding itself with his literal image on souvenir goods, and the coinage of the term "Obamajority" by the mayor of Hiroshima Tadatoshi Akiba upon the 64th anniversary of the bombing of his city to refer to the "majority of people and nations" who want to eliminate nuclear weapons. Obama's many fans in Japan have adopted his two slogans - "Yes we can!" and "Change" - as rallying cries for social and political reform. When asked, many of these fans claim that Obama's race (whether African American or mixed) plays little or no part in his image or popularity, and that he thus heralds the possibility and acceptability of a "post-racial" figure.

How is Obama's purported post-raciality inflected by the persistence of blood ideology in contemporary Japan? This presentation is a preliminary talk-through of issues surrounding "post-race" as part of my ongoing research on Obamamania in Japan.

This presentation shows how two seemingly contradictory concepts about social stratification in contemporary Japan - "fluidization" and "stabilization" - can be understood and explained in a coherent way. A classic example of "fluidization" is an increase in non-regular workers, while that of "stabilization" is an increase in the rigidity of intergenerational social mobility of a particular stratum. We hypothesize that the fluidization has not necessarily occurred at all strata; some strata have still been under the umbrella of protective institutions, while other strata have been being involved in the rapidly increasing fluidity.We argue that this hypothesis is generally supported by examining empirical findings made in the 2005 Social Stratification and Social Mobility Project. In conclusion we consider implications of the co-existence of "stability" of particular parts in social stratification and "fluidization" in the study of social stratification.Yoshimichi Sato is professor of sociology at Tohoku University and director of the Center for the Study of Social Stratification and Inequality. His recent publications include Deciphering Stratification and Inequality: Japan and Beyond (Trans Pacific Press) and Game Theory (Shinyo-sha, in Japanese).

This presentation shows how two seemingly contradictory concepts about social stratification in contemporary Japan - "fluidization" and "stabilization" - can be understood and explained in a coherent way. A classic example of "fluidization" is an increase in non-regular workers, while that of "stabilization" is an increase in the rigidity of intergenerational social mobility of a particular stratum. We hypothesize that the fluidization has not necessarily occurred at all strata; some strata have still been under the umbrella of protective institutions, while other strata have been being involved in the rapidly increasing fluidity.We argue that this hypothesis is generally supported by examining empirical findings made in the 2005 Social Stratification and Social Mobility Project. In conclusion we consider implications of the co-existence of "stability" of particular parts in social stratification and "fluidization" in the study of social stratification.Yoshimichi Sato is professor of sociology at Tohoku University and director of the Center for the Study of Social Stratification and Inequality. His recent publications include Deciphering Stratification and Inequality: Japan and Beyond (Trans Pacific Press) and Game Theory (Shinyo-sha, in Japanese).

Between 2002 and 2008, Japan's economy saw constant expansion, a record among the world's advanced economies and Japan's longest period of economic growth since World War II. This remarkable achievement was driven by a transformation of Japanese laws and business practices that have forced companies to refocus, away from the previous high diversification to a concentration on their core business. The sea-change in the incentives and constraints faced by Japanese managers has brought a strategic inflection point, and the emerging practices and attitudes have created a New Japan "Choose and focus" strategies, whereby corporations spin off unrelated businesses to concentrate on the core, have completely altered the strategic logic of Japan's industrial architecture, such as business groups, the main bank, corporate governance, and lifetime employment."Choose and focus" strategies have also created new market opportunities for start-up enterprises and foreign investors, as well as a wave of mergers, acquisitions, and hostile takeovers that have shaken Japanese companies out of complacency. Unlike the advances made by Japanese firms in the 1970s and 1980s, the current transformation is taking root in component and materials industries rather than in consumer products. Because of this and the overshadowing story of China's ascent, the Japanese corporate revolution has gone largely unnoticed among Western observers. Ulrike Schaede is Professor of Japanese Business at the University of California, San Diego. She is the author of Cooperative Capitalism: Self-Regulation, Trade Associations, and the Antimonopoly Law in Japan and coeditor of Japan's Managed Globalization: Adapting to the 21st Century. Her new book, Choose and Focus: Japanese Business Strategies for the 21st Century will be published by Cornell University Press in July 2008.