German Institute for Japanese Studies, Tokyo (DIJ) Podcast

Major research on Japanese civil society characterizes it as chronically weak and penetrated by the state, based on national level measures and comparisons with the contemporary United States. However a vast array of civil society organizations cannot be captured with this approach and remains invisible. Many of these organizations trace their roots to the social movements of the 1960s. I contend that civic participation in these conflicts shaped an alternative civil society in Japan, with characteristic organizational features and institutional practices that persist today. They are quite visible if you know where to look and can recognize their signatures.Dr. Patricia G. Steinhoff is professor of Sociology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Currently she is a visiting professor at the Institute for Social Science, University of TokyoHer research focuses on social movements and Japan. Recent publications include: Bestor, Theodore, Patricia G. Steinhoff, and Victoria Lyon-Bestor, eds., Doing Fieldwork in Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003; Steinhoff, Patricia G., "Kidnapped Japanese in North Korea: The New Left Connection" Journal of Japanese Studies Winter, 2004; and Steinhoff, Patricia G., "Radical Outcasts versus Three Kinds of Police: Constructing Limits in Japanese Anti-Emperor Protest" Qualitative Sociology , fall, 2006.

The lecture will focus on different corporate governance approaches, namely the US-American one, the German one and the Japanese one. The core issue will be a critical evaluation of the shareholder-orientation of corporate governance. The old dichotomy between shareholder and stakeholder approach will be criticised. The lecture will have a deeper look into the relation between shareholders and managers and ask which should be the position of management in corporate governance. It will be demonstrated that even the US-approach is heavily leaning towards the management perspective. In this perspective shareholder-orientation turns out to function as a constraint. The lecture will provide an overlook over legal models of corporate governance, modes of rule-making in this field and will analyse both with the tools of modern economics.Christian Kirchner is Professor of Law and Economics at Humboldt University, Berlin. He is member of the German Japanese Law Association and the American Law Institute. He has been involved as a consultant for law making projects in several countries in Asia and Europe. His major fields of research are business law, competition law, regulation, corporate law, accounting, corporate governance, law and economics, institutional economics.

The lecture will focus on different corporate governance approaches, namely the US-American one, the German one and the Japanese one. The core issue will be a critical evaluation of the shareholder-orientation of corporate governance. The old dichotomy between shareholder and stakeholder approach will be criticised. The lecture will have a deeper look into the relation between shareholders and managers and ask which should be the position of management in corporate governance. It will be demonstrated that even the US-approach is heavily leaning towards the management perspective. In this perspective shareholder-orientation turns out to function as a constraint. The lecture will provide an overlook over legal models of corporate governance, modes of rule-making in this field and will analyse both with the tools of modern economics.Christian Kirchner is Professor of Law and Economics at Humboldt University, Berlin. He is member of the German Japanese Law Association and the American Law Institute. He has been involved as a consultant for law making projects in several countries in Asia and Europe. His major fields of research are business law, competition law, regulation, corporate law, accounting, corporate governance, law and economics, institutional economics.

Marriage in rural communities in pre-industrial Japan tended to be early and universal. Divorce and remarriage were common, suggesting that there was virtually no stigma attached to divorce, and that the institution of marriage was extremely flexible. The frequency and speed of divorce and remarriage as well as the flexible "replacement" of household members challenges our view of the contemporary family.

Drawing data from the local population registers in two north-eastern agricultural villages between 1716 and 1870, this paper examines the consequences of marriage in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japan. The majority of the villagers' first marriages ended within 10 years. Mortality rates being high, villagers often experienced widowhood, but divorce was the most common reason for marital dissolution. More than half of the divorced and widowed men and women remarried within a few years after the dissolution of their marriage.

Applying a discrete-time event history analysis, the paper demonstrates how individual demographic characteristics (gender and age) as well as economic condition, domestic organization, and individual position in households influenced the likelihood of divorce and remarriage in Tokugawa Japan. These findings also have some bearing on the contemporary debates about family, marriage and declining fertility.

Satomi Kurosu is Professor of Sociology at Reitaku University, Kashiwa, Japan. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington (Seattle). Her research focuses on the relationships between family system and demographic behaviours. She is co-editor of The Own-Children Method of Fertility Estimation: Applications in Historical Demography (2003) and author of various articles on peasants' lifecourses in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japan.

Marriage in rural communities in pre-industrial Japan tended to be early and universal. Divorce and remarriage were common, suggesting that there was virtually no stigma attached to divorce, and that the institution of marriage was extremely flexible. The frequency and speed of divorce and remarriage as well as the flexible "replacement" of household members challenges our view of the contemporary family.Drawing data from the local population registers in two north-eastern agricultural villages between 1716 and 1870, this paper examines the consequences of marriage in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japan. The majority of the villagers' first marriages ended within 10 years. Mortality rates being high, villagers often experienced widowhood, but divorce was the most common reason for marital dissolution. More than half of the divorced and widowed men and women remarried within a few years after the dissolution of their marriage.Applying a discrete-time event history analysis, the paper demonstrates how individual demographic characteristics (gender and age) as well as economic condition, domestic organization, and individual position in households influenced the likelihood of divorce and remarriage in Tokugawa Japan. These findings also have some bearing on the contemporary debates about family, marriage and declining fertility.Satomi Kurosu is Professor of Sociology at Reitaku University, Kashiwa, Japan. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington (Seattle). Her research focuses on the relationships between family system and demographic behaviours. She is co-editor of The Own-Children Method of Fertility Estimation: Applications in Historical Demography (2003) and author of various articles on peasants' lifecourses in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japan.

The history of Japanese security policy is one of periods of debate punctuated by a broad consensus. Once secure at home, Japan's leaders have constructed a coherent national security strategy on three separate occasions and are in the process of doing so again today. Each time they have had to deal with similar choices - Should Japan be closer to Asia or the West? Would Japan be safer if it were big or if it were small? Is wealth a prerequisite for, or the result of strength? And each consensus has come out differently.

Japan has long been doing what all states do to reduce risk and optimize gain in an uncertain world - it has hedged. It is not yet ready to let go of the United States - and, indeed, it may never wish to do so. But while Japan seems to be allowing itself to become more reliant than ever on the United States for military security, its dependence is balanced by new economic opportunities and greater military capability. Viewed this way, hedging is not only a way for Japan to reduce risk, but is also a way to create options. It is likely that when the repositioning and debates currently underway are resolved, Japan will not only have provided itself more security options than it now enjoys, but it will have done so on its own terms.

Richard J. Samuels is Ford International Professor of Political Sciences and Director of the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is also Founding Director of the MIT Japan Program. He is also Chairman of the Japan-US Friendship Commission, an independent federal agency.His most recent books are Machiavelli's Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan (2003) and Rich Nation Strong Army: National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan (1994) - both from Cornell University Press.

The history of Japanese security policy is one of periods of debate punctuated by a broad consensus. Once secure at home, Japan's leaders have constructed a coherent national security strategy on three separate occasions and are in the process of doing so again today. Each time they have had to deal with similar choices - Should Japan be closer to Asia or the West? Would Japan be safer if it were big or if it were small? Is wealth a prerequisite for, or the result of strength? And each consensus has come out differently.Japan has long been doing what all states do to reduce risk and optimize gain in an uncertain world - it has hedged. It is not yet ready to let go of the United States - and, indeed, it may never wish to do so. But while Japan seems to be allowing itself to become more reliant than ever on the United States for military security, its dependence is balanced by new economic opportunities and greater military capability. Viewed this way, hedging is not only a way for Japan to reduce risk, but is also a way to create options. It is likely that when the repositioning and debates currently underway are resolved, Japan will not only have provided itself more security options than it now enjoys, but it will have done so on its own terms.Richard J. Samuels is Ford International Professor of Political Sciences and Director of the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is also Founding Director of the MIT Japan Program. He is also Chairman of the Japan-US Friendship Commission, an independent federal agency.His most recent books are Machiavelli's Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan (2003) and Rich Nation Strong Army: National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan (1994) - both from Cornell University Press.

The new Japanese history textbook by the revisionist Tsukuru-kai is at the center of a debate on neo-nationalism and the growing influence of right-wing intellectuals in Japan. This is part of an agenda that calls into question many assumptions on which post-war Japanese society has been built. As Hidetsugu Yagi, president of Tsukuru-kai until recently, pointed out, from the society's point of view "history textbooks are bad, but civic textbooks used in Japanese middle schools are worse" So far, the "New Civic Textbook" (Atarashii komin kyokasho) for middle schools has received less scholarly attention than the notorious history textbook.This paper will introduce the Civic textbook and its main assumptions about present and future Japanese society. In many ways the textbook tries to explain what makes "a good Japanese citizen" and therefore can serve as a key to understanding revisionist thinking on contemporary Japan. The analysis of texts and illustrations brings to light an image of Japanese society threatened from within and from outside. The paper focuses on how social change is dealt with in the "New Civic Textbook" and what solutions its narrative implies when addressing dramatic demographic challenges, changing family patterns and gender roles.Klaus Vollmer holds an M.A. and a PhD (1993) in Japanese Studies, Hamburg University. Post-doc research fellow Osaka City University, (prohibitions of killing and meat-eating in pre-modern Japan). Since 1998, chair of Japanese Studies, Japan Center Munich University; Numata-Fellow for studies in Japanese Buddhism in 2002. Fields of research and teaching include cultural and social history of Japan (both pre-modern and modern), focusing on representations and interpretations of Japanese culture. The topic of the presentation at the DIJ derives from a long-standing interest in issues of historical revisionism and historiography in Japan and Germany and its implications for images of and attitudes towards society and its norms.Since 2000, Klaus Vollmer is president of the German Association for Social Science Research on Japan (VSJF).

The new Japanese history textbook by the revisionist Tsukuru-kai is at the center of a debate on neo-nationalism and the growing influence of right-wing intellectuals in Japan. This is part of an agenda that calls into question many assumptions on which post-war Japanese society has been built. As Hidetsugu Yagi, president of Tsukuru-kai until recently, pointed out, from the society's point of view "history textbooks are bad, but civic textbooks used in Japanese middle schools are worse" So far, the "New Civic Textbook" (Atarashii komin kyokasho) for middle schools has received less scholarly attention than the notorious history textbook.This paper will introduce the Civic textbook and its main assumptions about present and future Japanese society. In many ways the textbook tries to explain what makes "a good Japanese citizen" and therefore can serve as a key to understanding revisionist thinking on contemporary Japan. The analysis of texts and illustrations brings to light an image of Japanese society threatened from within and from outside. The paper focuses on how social change is dealt with in the "New Civic Textbook" and what solutions its narrative implies when addressing dramatic demographic challenges, changing family patterns and gender roles.Klaus Vollmer holds an M.A. and a PhD (1993) in Japanese Studies, Hamburg University. Post-doc research fellow Osaka City University, (prohibitions of killing and meat-eating in pre-modern Japan). Since 1998, chair of Japanese Studies, Japan Center Munich University; Numata-Fellow for studies in Japanese Buddhism in 2002. Fields of research and teaching include cultural and social history of Japan (both pre-modern and modern), focusing on representations and interpretations of Japanese culture. The topic of the presentation at the DIJ derives from a long-standing interest in issues of historical revisionism and historiography in Japan and Germany and its implications for images of and attitudes towards society and its norms.Since 2000, Klaus Vollmer is president of the German Association for Social Science Research on Japan (VSJF).

This paper examines how postindustrial pressures and political changes have shaped recent social policy reforms in Japan and South Korea. Postindustrial pressures are categorized into exogenous and endogenous factors: exogenous being economic globalization and internationalization, endogenous being changing family and gender relations and demographic shifts such as population ageing and declining fertility. The conventional approach to East Asian welfare states no longer adequately explains recent social welfare policy changes in the region, marked by trends towards welfare state expansion. I argue that the interactions between postindustrial and domestic political factors provide credible explanations for welfare state policy changes observed in these countries in the 1990s.Ito Peng is Associate Professor of Political Sociology at the Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, Canada. She teaches comparative social policy, comparative welfare states, and gender and welfare states. Her current research include: 1) comparative study of welfare state responses to postindustrial pressures in Japan, Korea, Italy, and Spain; 2) social policy reforms and gender in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan; and 3) civil society engagements in social policy reforms in Japan and Korea. Her most recent papers were published in the Journal of East Asian Studies, the American Asian Review, and in Social Politics.