German Institute for Japanese Studies, Tokyo (DIJ) Podcast

Social scientists are frequently concerned with the “local”. However, the social and spatial boundaries of the “local” are often elusive, and subject to change. This is particularly true in Japan, where local administrative boundaries were abruptly redrawn in a wave of municipal mergers in the mid-2000s, initiating an ongoing process of local socio-spatial readjustments. In China, the “local” is the local in center-local relations between the Party central and the provinces, prefectures, counties, and towns. Since the onset of economic reform, the party-state has been incrementally changing the territories of these levels of government into cities. Subnational territories are not constitutionally guaranteed, and the state maintains powers to establish new cities, enlarge and merge existing ones and eliminate others.

The two speakers address political and economic consequences implied by differing delineations of subnational spaces.

Going by statistical measures, Japan is reportedly one of the least religious countries in the world. It is thus striking to observe the seemingly disproportionate impact of religious organizations on Japanese elections, legislation, and policymaking. The most powerful of these groups is Sōka Gakkai, a Buddhism-based lay association whose millions of adherents treat electioneering on behalf of its affiliated political party Kōmeitō (Clean Government Party) as a component of their religious practice. Since its founding in 1964, and particularly since it partnered with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1999 in the governing coalition, Kōmeitō has exerted a decisive political influence. And, while the party’s representatives consistently promote Kōmeitō as a brake on LDP efforts toward remilitarizing Japan and revising the 1947 Constitution’s peace clause (Article 9), Kōmeitō has reversed its stance on security issues – a move away from its founding pacifism that has alienated some of its Gakkai supporters.

In 1970, nine members of a Japanese New Left group called the Red Army Faction hijacked a domestic airliner to North Korea with dreams of acquiring military training in order to bring about a revolution in Japan. The North Korean government accepted the hijackers ̶ who became known in the media as the Yodogō group ̶ and two years later they announced their conversion to juche, North Korea’s political ideology. A superb example of investigative journalism, Destiny: The Secret Operations of the Yodogō Exiles offers Kōji Takazawa’s powerful story of how he exposed the Yodogō group’s involvement in the kidnapping and luring of several young Japanese to North Korea, as well as the truth behind their Japanese wives’ presence in the country. Takazawa’s careful research was validated in 2002, when the North Korean government publicly acknowledged it had kidnapped thirteen Japanese citizens during the 1970s and 1980s, including three people whom Takazawa had connected to the Yodogō hijackers. Embedded in his pursuit of what truly happened to the Yodogō members is Takazawa’s personal reflection of the 1970s, a decade when radical student activism swept Japan, and what it meant to those whose lives were forever changed. This talk will trace the story of the Yodogō exiles to North Korea, Kōji Takazawa’s involvement in their story and his work of investigative journalism.

A central part of Society 5.0 – Japan’s vision of fully digitally connected future – focuses on how connectivity, big data and AI can contribute to solve Japan’s pressing problems in the field of elderly care. Prof. Thomas Bock, a leading German engineer in the field of building robotics, and Prof. Shuichi Matsumura, a leading Japanese engineer specializing in system design for housing and urban spaces, will talk about the potential of the digital revolution for elderly care in living environments. Questions addressed are: How can sensor technology and connectivity support care-taking? How far are we away from implementation? Which countries are taking the lead? What major obstacles need to be overcome?

Are we about to witness fundamental changes to established work practices or just the addition of ‘non-standard’ options to a fundamentally outdated system? – Observers of recent work-related regulations of the Japanese government are divided on whether the country really is on its way to a place where women and other ‘atypical’ employees can shine, or whether the latter are just supposed to stabilize a system that always treated them as second-rate members. In this panel, we bring together a German and a Japanese expert on diversity issues in order to evaluate current political and societal trends towards a more diverse work force and, by extension, a more diverse society. By contrasting insider and outsider perspectives as well as academic and practical views both speakers will provide the audience with new insights on the opportunities and risks growing diversity entails for Japanese companies, employees, politics, and the country at large.

On October 22 Japan is heading to the polls for the third time in 5 years. The 2017 snap election has given candidates and parties little time to prepare and has made it difficult for observers to predict results as Japan’s party system seems once again in flux. The opposition camp is undergoing a major transformation as the Democratic Party, until September the biggest opposition party, has de-facto dissolved. Its members have joined two new parties: the Hope Party founded by Yuriko Koike, Tokyo’s governor, or the Constitutional Democratic Party, established by former DP secretary general Yukio Edano. Not least because of this division of the opposition the 2017 election could prove decisive, e.g. by clearing the way for constitutional revision.

Prof Koichi Nakano is professor of comparative politics, Japanese politics and political theory at Sophia University in Tokyo. His research focuses on a variety of issues of contemporary Japanese politics from comparative, historical, and philosophical perspectives, including globalization and nationalism; the Yasukuni problem; language, media and politics; amakudari and administrative reform in Japan. He also has a keen interest in the politics of Britain, France, other western European countries, and the EU.

Dr Chris Winkler, is lecturer in Japanese politics in the Modern Japanese Studies Program at Hokkaido University. Prior to joining Hokudai, Dr Winkler was senior research fellow and head of the social science section at DIJ. His main research interests are ideologies and how they shape policy formulation and politics in post-war Japan.

Since the 1990s, local democracy and representation in Japan have been changing. Political reforms at the national level, decentralization, reduced clientelism, and broader socio-economic challenges such as depopulation have transformed the roles of local legislatures and executives. These changes have not least affected important national policies.

The talk will analyze overall trends in the “quality” of local democracy in terms of some indicators of responsiveness, accountability and participation in local representation at municipal and prefectural level. It will further discuss how changes in local representation and local party organizations have affected national processes regarding public works, energy, and security. The talk concludes with reflections on how aggravated regional inequality will affect decentralization and the quality of local and national democracy in the near future.

Professor Yamada Kyohei will comment on Dr. Hijino’s latest research and amend the discussion by analyzing how changes in institutions and patterns of political competition at the local level affect political competition at the national level. A particular focus lies on how the increased volatility in national elections affects calculations and decisions of majority-seeking political parties. He will further discuss how political competition at national level affects the central government’s willingness and capacity to change or not to change the population size of local governments.

Not that long ago, the term “Japanese career women” almost had been a contradiction in itself. Times have changed and Japanese women pursuing a career is a much talked about topic in politics (“womenomics”) and the media. But has the situation really changed for career women “on the ground”? What are their opportunities and what are their challenges? To what extent are professional expectations and expectations in their private life contradicting each other? And finally, are contradicting expectations resulting in identity conflicts and what are the strategies to cope with these conflicts? These are questions to be addressed in the presentations. The presentation by Markus Pudelko is based on more than 70 interviews that he has conducted in Japan over the course of several years.

‘Victimhood nationalism’ is a working hypothesis to explicate competing national memories over the historical position of victims in coming to terms with the past. The hereditary memory of victimhood consolidates the national solidarity beyond generations and justifies nationalism by endowing the victimized nation with the moral sympathy and historical authenticity. Without a reflection on victimhood nationalism, the postwar Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung (‘coming to terms with the past’) cannot be properly grasped. Victimhood nationalism is intrinsically transnational since victims are unthinkable without victimizers. The transnationality of victimhood nationalism demands a histoire croisée to comprehend the entangled past of the victimized and victimizers. A transnational history of ‘coming to terms with the past’ would show that the vicious circle of victimhood nationalisms, based on the antagonistic complicity of nationalisms between the victimizers and victims, has been a rock to any historical reconciliation effort. The talk will focus on a transnational history of victimhood nationalism in Korea, Poland, and Israel with Japan and Germany as counterparts.

In most postindustrial societies, we presently experience a transformation from a gender order based on difference to a more flexible one. In the sphere of production, we witness a highly increased women’s labor market participation, based on the support of equal opportunity and diversity schemes. However, a large part of female employees are working in irregular or precarious jobs, and this trend is extending to male wage earners. In the sphere of reproduction, fathers are seeking opportunities for stronger participation, for example through child care leave. Institutional rules are getting more flexible against the backdrop of economization and growing insecurity. Moreover, biological dualism in the concept of gender is changing towards diverse gender concepts and supporting individual life careers.