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Democratic Theories and Japanese Modernization
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
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Looking back at the path of modernization Japan has taken in the last hundred years, one finds the most serious failure to be the lack of development of democratic political theories. In our evaluations of the ‘modernization achievements’ of Japan, this is usually the focal point of disagreement between Western and Japanese scholars. Often in the name of ‘value-free’ political science, Western scholars try their best not to mix the issue of modernization with that of democratization. The failure of democracy in pre-War Japan is usually considered insignificant, though relevant, in the discussion of the success of her modernization. More often the failure is obscured by the presence of some democratic theories and movements during the Meiji and Taisho period. In contrast, Japanese scholars tend to consider modernization and democratization as inseparable. They refuse to accept the so-called ‘objective’ approach of Western scholars, not on the basis of the old Comintern formula of ‘modernization means development toward bourgeois democracy’, but because of their emphasis on the qualitative output of a political system.
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This a revised edition of the paper presented by the writer at the Seventeenth Annual Meeting, Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, 31 October to 2 November 1968. I am grateful to the staff of the Asian Library, University of British Columbia, for their generous assistance in my search for materials for this paper. I would also like to thank Professor David Wurfuel for his valuable criticism before this final draft was written.
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24 For the socialists this was caused by their historical emphasis on humanism and pacifism in Japan. The failure of the democratic movement also drove many extreme democrats into the socialist camp. For example, see the process of change of political thought in people like Kotoku Shusui, Kawakami Hajime, and Oyama Ikuo. On the part of the Communists, this was based on their definition of Japan ‘in the stage of Bourgeois democratic revolution’ which should create conditions for the following stage of proletariat revolution. Thus the Communist International repeatedly advocated the need for the Japanese Communists to use democratic slogans and to support democratic movements. In spite of the many mistakes in applying the Communist ‘formula’ to define the nature of Japanese society, Communism was the one which did pinpoint the evils of the Emperor System. See Kentaro, Yamabe (ed.), Collection of Theses on Japan by Comintern, Aoki Shoten: Tokyo, 1961.Google Scholar
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29 Takushima Norimitsu, drafted while attending the Keio University. The quotation was written on 18 July 1944, in his diary to be left for his family. Collected in Kindai Nihon no Meicho (Famous Works of Modern Japan), Vol. 9. Senso Taiken (The Experience of War), edited by Munemitsu, Yamada, Tokuma Shoten: Tokyo, 1966, pp. 256–7Google Scholar; my translation.
Also see Kike Wadatsumi no Koe (Collection of Writings of the students who died in World War II), Tokyo University Press, 1952.Google Scholar
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31 Ibid.
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