Business-Government Relations in Prewar Japan

Business-Government Relations in Prewar Japan
Author: Peter von Staden
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2007-08-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1134150466

For the business and government relationship in Japan, the pre-war period was an era of considerable change. Framed by Japan’s nation-building efforts, the relationship adapted and evolved with the often fluid economic and political circumstances. As both business and government had vested interests in the direction and success of Japan’s industrialization process, on one level they became partners. At the same time, though, they were both stakeholders in the fiercely competitive iron and steel industry. This book explores how that partner-competitor relationship worked during the amalgamation of this strategic industry from 1916 to 1934, demonstrating how both parties engaged in meaningful negotiation through the open forum of the Shingikai - or Councils of Deliberation - throughout the pre-war period. Drawing upon the original minutes of the debates, it shows the ways in which the participants defended their vested interests and sought to forge agreement, taking the forum seriously as a means of influencing outcomes, and not simply as a mere exercise of artifice deployed to shroud the real locus of decision-making. Business-Government Relations in Prewar Japan is an important contribution to the literature on the relationship between government and business in pre-war Japan.

Business-Government Relations in Prewar Japan

Business-Government Relations in Prewar Japan
Author: Peter von Staden
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2007-08-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1134150474

This book is a much needed exploration on the relationship between government and business in pre-war Japan, making an important contribution to the literature by considering periods which have often been neglected by scholars.

Failed Democratization in Prewar Japan

Failed Democratization in Prewar Japan
Author: Harukata Takenaka
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2014-08-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0804790744

Failed Democratization in Prewar Japan presents a compelling case study on change in political regimes through its exploration of Japan's transition to democracy. Within a broad-ranging examination of Japan's "semi-democratic" political system from 1918 to 1932, when political parties tended to dominate the government, the book analyzes in detail why this system collapsed in 1932 and discusses the implications of the failure. By reference to comparable cases—prewar Argentina, prewar Germany, postwar Brazil, and 1980s Thailand—Harukata Takenaka reveals that the factors responsible for the breakdown of the Taisho democracy in Japan replicated those that precipitated the collapse of democracy in Europe, Latin America, and elsewhere in Asia. While most literature on these transitions focuses on successful cases, Takenaka explores democratic failure to answer questions about how and why political parties and their leaders can behave in ways that undermine the democratic institutions that serve as the basis for their formal authority.

The Dilemmas of Growth in Prewar Japan

The Dilemmas of Growth in Prewar Japan
Author: James William Morley
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 538
Release: 2015-03-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 1400872901

The sixth and final volume in the series published for the Conference on Modern Japan reviews the political, economic and foreign policy problems faced by Japan during the 1930's and '40's. James Morley's introductory chapter, "Choice and Consequence," and Edwin O. Reisehauer's conclusion. "What Went Wrong?" define the context of the discussion. Contents: "Foreword," John Whitney Hall. 1. "Introduction: Choice and Consequence," James William Morley. PART ONE: Political and Military. II. "The Bureaucracy as a Political Force, 1920-45," Robert M. Spaulding, Jr. III. "Retrogression in Japan's Foreign Policy Decision-Making Process," Chihiro Hosoya. IV. "The Failure of Military Expansionism," Akira Iriye. V. "The Radical Left and the Failure of Communism," George M. Beekmann. PART TWO: Economic and Social. VI. "Rural Origins of Japanese Fascism," R. P. Dore and Tsutomu Ouchi. VII. "The Economic Muddle of the 192O's," Hugh I. Patrick. VIII. "Big Business and Politics in Prewar Japan," Arthur E. Tiedemann. PAKT THREE: Intellectual. IX. "Intellectuals as Visionaries of the New Asian Order," James B. Crowley. X. "Nakano Seigo and the Spirit of the Meiji Restoration in Twentieth- Century Japan," Tetsuo Najita. XI. "Oyama Ikuo and the Search for Democracy," Peter Duus. PART FOUR: Comparisons and Conclusions. XII. "Japan and Germany in the Interwar Period," Kentaro Hayashi. XIII. "What Went Wrong?" Edwin O. Reischauer. Index. Originally published in 1972. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

A History of Japan’s Government-Business Relationship

A History of Japan’s Government-Business Relationship
Author: Phyllis Genther
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2020-08-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0472902075

Despite the economic and political importance of the U.S.-Japan relationship and the extensive attention paid to automotive trade, few American scholars or policy makers are familiar with the history of Japanese government-business relations, either generally or for specific industries such as passenger cars. This book hopefully helps in a small way to fill that gap in our knowledge and, thus, to help strengthen the foundation from which we make public policy decisions about bilateral trade. [ix]

The Philosophy of Japanese Wartime Resistance

The Philosophy of Japanese Wartime Resistance
Author: David Williams
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 451
Release: 2014-04-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317918568

The transcripts of the three Kyoto School roundtable discussions of the theme of ‘the standpoint of world history and Japan’ may now be judged to form the key source text of responsible Pacific War revisionism. Published in the pages of Chuo Koron, the influential magazine of enlightened elite Japanese opinion during the twelve months after Pearl Harbor, these subversive discussions involved four of the finest minds of the second generation of the Kyoto School of philosophy. Tainted by controversy and shrouded in conspiratorial mystery, these transcripts were never republished in Japan after the war, and they have never been translated into English except in selective and often highly biased form. David Williams has now produced the first objective, balanced and close interpretative reading of these three discussions in their entirety since 1943. This version of the wartime Kyoto School transcripts is neither a translation nor a paraphrase but a fuller rendering in reader-friendly English that is convincingly faithful to the spirit of the original texts. The result is a masterpiece of interpretation and inter-cultural understanding between the Confucian East and the liberal West. Seventy years after Tojo came to power, these documents of the Japanese resistance to his wartime government and policies exercise a unique claim on students of Japanese history and thought today because of their unrivalled revelatory potential within the vast literature on the Pacific War. The Philosophy of Japanese Wartime Resistance may therefore stand as the most trenchant analysis of the political, philosophic and legal foundations of the place of the Pacific War in modern Japanese history yet to appear in any language.

Itō Hirobumi - Japan's First Prime Minister and Father of the Meiji Constitution

Itō Hirobumi - Japan's First Prime Minister and Father of the Meiji Constitution
Author: Takii Kazuhiro
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2014-01-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317818474

The brilliant and influential statesman, Itō Hirobumi (1841-1909), and the first prime minister of Japan’s modern state, has been poorly understood. This biography attempts to set the record straight about Itō’s thought and vision for Japan’s modernisation based on research in primary sources. It outlines Itō’s life: the son of a poor farmer, he showed exceptional talent as a boy and was sent to study in Europe and the United States. He returned home convinced that Western civilisation was the only viable path for Japan. Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Itō became a powerful intellectual and political force behind reforms of Japanese laws and institutions aimed to shape a modern government based on informed leadership and a knowledeable populace. Among his many achievements were the establishment of Japan’s first constitution—the Meiji Constitution of 1889, and the founding in 1900 of a new type of constitutional party, the Rikken Seiyukai (Friends of Constitutional Government), which, reformulated after 1945, became the Liberal Democratic Party that has dominated Japanese politics in the postwar period. Concerning Itō’s role as Japanese Resident-General in Korea from 1905, the author argues that Itō’s aim, not understood by either the Japanese home government or Koreans themselves, was not to colonize Korea. He was determined to modernise Korea and consolidate further constitutional reforms in Japan. This aim was not shared by others, and Itō resigned in 1909. He was assassinated the same year in Manchuria by a Korean nationalist. The Japanese language edition of this book is a bestseller in Japan, and it received the Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities, one of Japan's most prestigious publishing awards.

Provincial Life and the Military in Imperial Japan

Provincial Life and the Military in Imperial Japan
Author: Stewart Lone
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2009-10-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135212120

The book challenges the long-standing view of prewar Japan as a ‘militaristic’ society. Instead of relying on the usual accounts about senior commanders and politics at the heart of government, it shows the realities of provincial society’s relations with the military in Japan at ground level.

Voices from the Shifting Russo-Japanese Border

Voices from the Shifting Russo-Japanese Border
Author: Svetlana Paichadze
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2015-02-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317618882

In the nineteenth century, as the Russian empire expanded eastwards and the Japanese empire expanded onto the Asian continent, the Russo-Japanese border became contested on and around the island of Sakhalin, its Russian name, or Karafuto, as it is known in Japanese. Then in the wake of the Second World War, Russia seized control of the island and the Japanese inhabitants were deported. Sakhalin’s history as a border zone makes it a lynchpin of Russo-Japanese relations, and as such it is a rich case study for exploring the key themes of this book: life in the borderlands, migration, repatriation, historical memory, multiculturalism and identity. With a focus on cross-border dialogue, Voices from the Shifting Russo-Japanese Border reveals the lives of the ordinary people in the border regions between Russia and Japan, and how they and their communities have been affected by shifts in the Russo-Japanese border over the past century-and-a-half. Examining the lives and experiences of repatriates from Karafuto/Sakhalin in contemporary Hokkaido and their contribution to the multicultural society of Japan’s northernmost island, the chapters cover the border shifts in Karafuto/Sakhalin up until 1945, the immediate aftermath the Second World War, the commemorative practices and memories of those in both Japan and Eastern Russia, and, finally, postwar lives by drawing extensively on interviews with people in the communities affected most by the shifting border. This interdisciplinary book will be of huge interest to students and scholars across a broad range of subjects including Russo-Japanese relations, Northeast Asian history, border studies, migration studies, and the Second World War.