The Nationalism in Modern Japan

キンダイ　ニホン　ノ　ナショナリズム

ツネキ, アツシ

Tsuneki, Atsushi

The Economic Society of Osaka University　and　Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University

オオサカ　ダイガク　ケイザイ　ガッカイ オオサカ　ダイガク　ダイガクイン　ケイザイガク　ケンキュウカ

Modern Japan

Nationalism

Democracy

Individualism

This article surveys the process of development of the nationalism in modern Japan after the Meiji Restoration, with reference to its relationship with the institutional change of the political regime and the process of economic development. After the establishment of the prototypical nationalism in the early modern Japan, Kokutai-ron, Japanese thinkers in the Meiji era made efforts to interpret the meaning of Western liberalism and democracy consistently with Kokutai-ron, and the effort was culminated into the idea and institution of the constitutional monarchy in the Meiji Constitution. However, as the understanding of the meaning of individualism and the rule of law was immature, Japanese nationalism after the period could not develop consistently with constitutionalism. It was instead captured with economic collectivism and foreign aggressionism and ended up with the militarism in 1930s. Though militarism was decomposed after the defeat of the Pacific War, the alternative view on the nation state proposed by the Post-War Democrats put priority on the democracy, i.e., self-determination by the people, to the liberalism, i.e., the rule of law. As its consequence, Japanese nationalism after the war became confusingly ambiguous both from the leftist and the rightist standpoint, and finally ended up with meaningless political confusions while welfare state policy by the conservative government was succeeded accompanied with its pro-US foreign policy.