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This paper seeks to investigate whether the Japanese government’s attempt to promote a ‘gender-equal’ society in recent decades and the improved status of women are reflected in patterns of gender representation in Japanese English as a foreign language textbooks. The study made an analysis of four popular series of English language textbooks published in 2011 for local Japanese students with corpus linguistic tools (e.g. concordancing, keyword in context) to investigate the ratio of female-to-male appearances, the extent of use of gender-neutral and gender-marked constructions, the common adjectives associated with women and men, the common address titles for reference to women, and the order of appearance of women and men. The findings revealed some evidence of gender equity, including common use of gender-inclusive vocabulary (e.g. salesclerk, waitperson) and the neutral address title Ms for women. The ‘male-first’ phenomenon, however, is still prevalent in contemporary Japanese textbooks, suggesting the secondary status of women. Variations were found in different series of textbooks pertaining to the representation of women and men in the domains of quantitative balance and gender stereotyping. It is suggested that specific guidelines be compiled by the education authorities to help textbook authors write educational materials that help promote a gender-fair society in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experiences of Korean comfort girls-women before and during World War II are a paradigmatic example of how military sexual violence has the power to obliterate women’s dignity and shame them into nonexistence. I propose that their horrific experience of sexual slavery under the Japanese military caused intense and lasting shame that resulted in the Korean comfort girls-women’s sense of self being entrenched in shame. Moreover, I argue that the innocence of Korean comfort girls-women was and continues to be inadequately recognized. The Japanese government refuses to admit its legal accountability and has not provided just reparations to Korean comfort girls-women for its treacherous and systematic sexual enslavement of Korean and other comfort girls-women. The Korean government and the people of Korea have been too slow to accept the innocence of these women, to embrace their pain, sorrow, and suffering, and to advocate for justice for them. This conversion of their innocence into inadequacy or shame, actively by the Japanese government and passively by the Korean government and its people, compounded these women’s long, miserable suffering for half a century until the silence was broken in 1991 by a brave woman, Kim Haksun, with the support of Korean activists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this Special Section, this article reviews South Korean views on Japan's ‘peace’ Constitution and the Abe government's attempts at constitutional reform. It identifies three different understandings among South Korean academics on why Japan is escalating attempts to revise the Constitution under the Abe government. An in-depth analysis demonstrates that all three perspectives pay specific attention to Japan's constitutional reform in relation to security policy changes. However, they differ in assessing the impact of Japan's constitutional reform on South Korea as well as how South Korea should deal with such a change. A minority opinion considers Japan's ‘remilitarisation’ through constitutional revision as conducive to South Korean security interests by increasing deterrence against North Korea, whereas the dominant opinion is that any attempt to revise the Constitution could be in and of itself a potential threat to South Korea's security due to a lack of trust attributed to unresolved historical conflicts between Korea and Japan. However, all three approaches pay hardly any attention to the positive role of Japan's peace Constitution while Japan's peace Constitution might provide a regional peace model in Northeast Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on the assumption that the Japanese political system is fully comparable with the systems of other major systems, and that its analysis may afford useful insights for the understanding of political systems more generally. Its focus is upon five successive transformations of the system since the late nineteenth century that, in sequence and taken together, have created the present system. These are: (1) the revolutionary changes of the Meiji period (1868–1912), leading to modernisation, militarism, and ultimate defeat in war; (2) occupation, democracy, economic resurgence and single-party dominance (1945–1990); (3) low growth, electoral reform and neo-liberalism (1991–2006); (4) Liberal Democratic Party decline and the opposition in power (2006–2012); and (5) authoritarian leadership with weak opposition (2012 onwards). The article concludes with a discussion of three issues: (1) ambiguous aspects of strong leadership; (2) the chronic weakness of Japanese political opposition and its implications for democracy; and (3) the significance of radical transformations for the understanding of a political system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Allied powers expected that World War II in the Pacific would not conclude until the Japanese mainland had been invaded. Planning for this invasion began in 1944 and was intended to proceed in two stages: the amphibious invasion of the island of Kyushu, followed by the amphibious invasion of the island of Honshu. This paper describes the planning for Operation Olympic, the proposed invasion of Kyushu, which the Allies had scheduled for November 1945. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to examine multiple factors associated with happiness from the perspective of gender difference among a middle‐aged Japanese population. A total of 865 participants (male = 344, female = 521) aged 40–64 years were divided into two groups (high and low) by their self‐reported level of happiness. Logistic regression analysis by gender was carried out. In men, high levels of happiness were significantly correlated with living with spouse, occupation, enough sleep, leading a normal life, and regular checkups; while low levels of happiness were significantly correlated with smoking and having two or more diseases. In women, low levels of happiness were significantly correlated with caring for a family member. Our data suggested that the factors relevant to happiness levels might vary between men and women among middle‐aged people in Japan. To increase the nation's level of happiness, the Japanese government must implement extended social services and policymaking, to alleviate caregivers’ burdens, especially among Japanese women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1969, Japan launched a massive subsidy program for the “burakumin” outcastes. The subsidies attracted the mob, and the higher incomes now available through organized crime attracted many burakumin. Thus, the subsidies gave new support to the tendency many Japanese already had to equate the burakumin with the mob. The government ended the subsidies in 2002. We explore the effect of the termination by merging 30 years of municipality data with a long‐suppressed 1936 census of burakumin neighborhoods. We find that out‐migration from municipalities with more burakumin increased after the end of the program. Apparently, the subsidies restrained young burakumin from joining mainstream society. We also find that despite the end of government‐subsidized amenities, once the subsidies neared their end, real estate prices rose in municipalities with burakumin neighborhoods. With the subsidies gone and the mob in retreat, other Japanese found the formerly burakumin communities increasingly attractive places to live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although state transformation after the 1980s has been a major topic of debate in political science, the transformation of the Japanese state has not been fully explored, with the pluralist and rational choice approaches dominating within the Japanese politics literature. This article addresses the lacuna by exploring state transformation in Japan's antimonopoly regulation after the 1980s, focusing on the state at the macro level through analysing evolving power relations within the core executive in response to the challenges of governance. The case study reveals the flexible change of power relations within the core executive; the core executive retained its dominance within policy-making arenas through this adaptation, which is regarded as the reconstitution of the state. Drawing on that, the article argues that the nature of state transformation in Japan is the sustained dominance of the core executive as a collective group over the sector through reconstituting the state. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The former Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto is the focus of much public attention in Japan. He is a polarizing figure who is both liked and disliked in equal measures, and his political character, including his argumentative approach, has been widely discussed by the Japanese and international media, as well as within academic research. For example, the Japan Times labelled his speech style as ‘a Japanese version of Donald Trump and the former Tokyo mayor, Shintaro Ishihara, said Hashimoto's speech is like ‘Hitler's’. This study examines the differences between Hashimoto's rhetoric and that of other Japanese politicians. Of the various tactics involved in the argumentative strategy of Hashimoto, this study specifically focuses on his attacking of opponents, which is one of the common and important tactics used in political debate. This study analyses the three linguistic approaches used in political debate: the policies or character of the target; the evaluative meanings of attack, and negotiation used to reduce the assertiveness of attack. The data were drawn from a televised political debate, in which Hashimoto was required to debate with three opponents who opposed his points of view. This study demonstrates that the target and the evaluative meanings behind Hashimoto's attacks were not remarkably different from the other politicians. However, Hashimoto did not use negotiation and and he was more assertive in presenting criticisms while the other politicians’ criticisms were mediated by negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We study a core question of interest in political science: Do candidates position themselves differently under different electoral systems and is their positioning in line with the expectations of spatial theories? We use validated estimates of candidate ideological positions derived from quantitative scaling of 7,497 Japanese-language election manifestos written by the near universe of candidates who competed in the eight House of Representatives elections held on either side of Japan’s 1994 electoral reform. Leveraging variation before and after Japan’s electoral reform, as well as within each electoral system, we find that candidates converge in single-member districts and diverge in multimember districts, and converge on copartisans when not faced with intraparty competition and diverge when they do. Our study helps to clarify debates about the effects of electoral systems on ideological polarization and party cohesion in Japan and more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The governments of several countries support research and development (R&D) consortia between universities and industry through public subsidies, in order to promote innovation. In the first decade of this century, two ministries of the Japanese government, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport, Science and Technology (MEXT), began independently implementing cluster policies for R&D consortia with the same purpose, though with contrasting policy designs. While private firms can play a leading role and obtain a considerable share of the METI subsidy, they are the subcontractors to the university partners, and thus, cannot gain a direct share of the MEXT subsidy. Focusing on the Japanese policies, we empirically investigate how participating firms' commitment toward R&D projects differs between these cluster programs and examine whether the firms' commitment enhances project performance (i.e., commercialization of R&D outcomes) using original and comparable survey data. The estimation results suggest that the participants of the METI program demonstrate a significantly higher commitment when compared to the participants of the MEXT program, and that project performance significantly depends on firm commitment. A major policy implication is that when commercialization is important for the government, it should consider firm commitment in policy design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we compare and analyze the differences in the effects of fiscal and monetary policy using time-varying parameter structural vector auto-regression (TVP-VAR). Specifically, we estimate a 5-variable TVP-VAR model using monthly data from March 2001 to August 2017. The estimation results indicated the following four points. First, expansionary fiscal policy can impact GDP faster than an expansionary monetary policy. Second, expansionary fiscal policy has lowered prices. Third, an expansionary monetary policy can increase GDP more persistently than an expansionary fiscal policy during unconventional monetary policy periods. Finally, expansionary monetary policy has raised prices. These estimation results reveal that if the Japanese government wants to strongly boost GDP alone, it should use fiscal policy alongside monetary policy because fiscal policy can immediately raise GDP. If the Japanese government seeks moderate increases in both GDP and prices, it is more effective to use monetary policy alone without increasing fiscal expenditure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Japanese liability system regarding pharmaceutical products consists of two basic categories: the general fault-based liability is accompanied by the liability system based on the Product Liability Act (PLA), which is established under the influence of American doctrine and the EC directive. The PLA liability is originally supposed to be a strict liability, but this characterisation is recently more and more doubted. The other features of Japanese law relating to pharmaceutical products liability include some state-operated compensation schemes, several measures to facilitate proof, development risk defence, lack of market share liability and class action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the negotiations between Japan and Okinawa to clarify the latter's role in this process. I focus on visits to Tokyo by Chobyo Yara, Chief Executive of the Government of the Ryukyu Islands, to meet with Japanese Government officials, including Prime Minister Eisaku Sato and Foreign Minister Kiichi Aichi. In particular, I consider 'homeland level status', a term used in these discussions to define the conditions for Okinawa's reversion to Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Larq Journal for Philosophy, Linguistics & Social Sciences is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Starting in the early 1950s, the Japanese flaghi no maruwas a cherished symbol in Okinawa of the movement for an end to the postwar U.S. military occupation and reversion to Japanese sovereignty. The flag represented an appeal for liberation from U.S. military rule that dragged on for twenty years (1945–1972) after mainland Japan regained its sovereignty in 1952; and, for elimination, or at least reduction, of the overwhelming size and number of American bases on the island. However, the 1969 Okinawa Reversion Agreement between the U.S. and Japanese governments broke both of the Japanese government’s promises that, after reversion, Okinawa would have no nuclear weapons, and that U.S. bases would be reduced to mainland levels. The grossly disproportionate U.S. military remains to this day, and a “secret agreement” permits the United States to bring back nuclear weapons. Today many in Okinawa associatehi no maruwith this discriminatory policy which imposes 74 percent of the total U.S. military presence in Japan on this small island prefecture comprising 0.2 percent of the nation’s land area. For historians, the flag also represents atrocities committed by Imperial Japanese soldiers during the Pacific War and the Japanese government’s continuing reluctance to acknowledge them. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With his frequent travels to the Middle East, more than all other Japanese leaders in the past, Shinzo Abe had been destined to ineluctably play a distinctive role in redefining his country's foreign policy approach toward the region. Essentially, when Abe returned to power for a second time in late 2012, he succeeded to subsequently establish a relatively stable and long-term government which strived to critically reappraise some highly contentious elements of Japan's internal and external policies. Reassessing Japan's conventional low-profile orientation to the Middle East was particularly a major objective of the Abe government because the region had turned out to be closely and dubiously connected to some pivotal political and security reforms which Abe had long pursued to achieve domestically. By primarily doubling down Japan's political engagement in different parts of the Middle East, therefore, Abe took advantage of what his country had capitalized in the region in more recent times to especially accelerate the accomplishment of some other political and security he favored ardently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

On November 3, 1946, the current Constitution of Japan was promulgated. Immediately before it came into effect on May 3, 1947, I was elected for the first time in the general election in April 1947 and entered national politics as a member of the House of Representatives. Since then, the Constitution of Japan moved through its 70-year-history, which overlaps my life as a politician at 99 years of age. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers information on the Nippon Kaigi, a Japanese nationalist unincorporated association; along with its role in supporting Japan's Abe administration. Topics discussed include history of right-wing movement that led to the formation of Nippon Kaigi; Abe administration's concept of education rebuilding; and amendment of the post-war Constitution.

The article addressing the issues surrounding nationalism and women trafficking in Japan. Topics discussed include relation of Japanese nationality to the history of the wartime comfort women; role of government in rebuilding survivors of wartime sexual violence; and issues of gender discrimination in the country.

Background: Menstrual problems can significantly impact daily and work life. In reaction to a shrinking population, the Japanese government is encouraging more women to participate in the labor force. Actual success in achieving this aim, however, is limited. Specifically, participation in the workforce by women during their reproductive years is impacted by their health, which involves not only work conditions, but also traditional family circumstances. Therefore, it is important to further assess and gather more information about the health status of women who work during their reproductive years in Japan. Specifically, women's health can be represented by menstruation status, which is a pivotal indicator. In this study, we assessed the association between short rest periods in work intervals and menstruation and other health status indicators among female workers in Japan. Methods: Study participants were recruited from the alumnae of a university, which provided a uniform educational level. All 9864 female alumnae were asked to join the survey and 1630 (17%) accepted. The final sample of study participants (n = 505) were aged 23-43 years, had maintained the same job status for at least 1 year, and were not shift workers, had no maternal status, and did not lack any related information. The participants were divided into two groups according to interval time, with 11 h between end of work and resumption of daily work as a benchmark. This interval time was based on EU regulations and the goal set by the government of Japan. Health outcomes included: menstrual cycle, dysmenorrhoea symptoms, anxiety regarding health, and satisfaction in terms of health. Multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for health indexes in association with interval time by adjusting for confounding variables that included both psychosocial and biological factors. Results: We compared the health status of women in the workforce with and without a sufficient interval time of 11 h/day. Workers who had a short interval time had a significantly higher prevalence of anxiety about health and dissatisfaction with their health. For menstruation status, only abnormal menstruation cycles were observed more often among workers in the short interval group than those of the long interval group. However, this association disappeared when biological confounding factors were adjusted in a multivariable regression model. Dysmenorrhea symptoms did not show a statistically significant association with short interval time. Conclusions: This study found a significant association between a short interval time of less than 11 h/day and subjective health indicators and the menstrual health status of women in the workforce. Menstrual health was more affected by biological factors than social psychological factors. A long work time and short interval time could increase worker anxiety and dissatisfaction and may deteriorate the menstrual cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feed-in tariff (FiT) policy approaches for renewable energy (RE) deployment are employed in many nations around the world. Although FiTs are considered effective in boosting RE deployment, the issue of increasing energy bills and social burden is an often-reported negative impact of their use. The FiT has been employed in Japan since 2012, following after many developed countries, and, as was experienced in other nations, led to a social burden imparted on society significantly higher than initial government estimates. Although policy decision making does not necessarily reflect international policy experience, it is still prudent to ask how international policy experiences of social burden increase were considered within the Japanese approach. In this research, we analyzed the transfer process by adapting a conventional model to develop more objective observations than was previously possible, by setting a benchmark for evaluation based on prior international experiences. We identified two streams of policy transfer, each led by different actors; the government and representatives of the National Diet of Japan (Diet). Both actors were exposed to the same experiences, however the interpretation, application to policy development and priority settings employed were vastly different. Although the framework can only assess policy learning processes, we have found that the government undertook a reasonable and rational process toward learning, while, on the other hand, the modified bill developed by the Diet members did not thoroughly derive learnings in the same way, due to cognitive and political reasons, and specifically, the issue of limiting social burden was not addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study of Japan's electoral geography focuses on the outcomes of the 2014 General Election for the House of Representatives. It reflects on the political power of segmented policy communities involved in international free trade and domestic agricultural policy reform and the way they interact with each other. The capability of these policy communities to negotiate behind-the-scenes trade-offs, in order to facilitate reform without disrupting the status quo, is identified as a major determinant of the power structure in contemporary Japan. Also, as low-information and low-participation elections tend to result in a high rate of re-election of incumbents, the depoliticisation of the citizenry is in the interest of these policy communities. Therefore, specific policies and the differentiation among political parties played only a minor role during the 2014 electoral campaign. The paper demonstrates that the strong force of the agricultural policy community to resist transformational change is still deeply rooted in the proportional overrepresentation of agricultural interests built into the electoral system. It concludes that within the context of an increasing deficit of legitimacy and an aggravating depoliticisation trend, commitments to fundamental polity reform are integral to voters' perceptions of the fairness of Japan's democratic institutions. Significant structural reforms that embody federalist and direct democracy principles are discussed as an alternative to the unitary state model in order to seriously tackle issues of proportional misrepresentation and adequately accommodate rural interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between the trust in leadership of political leaders and citizen participation by analysing data on Tokyo residents. Among the four variables we used to designate types of, or attitudes towards, public participation, only actual participation has a positive influence on trust. The normative recognition of participation is associated with a critical attitude towards the government. As the unclear needs of citizens have the greatest impact on trust, citizens’ trust is built through relationships between citizens and not between citizens and their government. The importance of positive actions from the local government such as public officials and political leaders that stimulate citizen awareness to the point where citizens take interest in public administration, practice participation, and enlarge participation opportunities, is increasing. We also need to consider the limitations of citizen ability to understand public issues and reflection of their needs, and the limitations of participatory governance on the decision-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analysis the impact of first past the post system in Japan on electoral competition and public confidence in country's parliamentary democracy. Topics discussed include establishment of a mixed-member electoral system that combined the first past the post system; impact of mixed-member system on lection of minority party representatives such as Social Democratic Party of Japan (SDP) and the Japan Communist Party; and rise of anti-democratic politics in the country.

Japan's 2013 UN Arms Trade Treaty diplomacy exhibited neither the standard minimalist, subservient negotiating style nor policymaking restricted to the usual actors. Juxtaposition of the treaty and the 2014 arms export policy revision illustrates how traditional "peace diplomacy" can evolve into "proactive pacifism". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conservative Liberal Democratic Party won overwhelming victories in the 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2016 elections in Japan. We discuss whether this reflected a rightward shift in the electorate, by examining how major parties and leaders are identified with particular ideological poles, and citizen-government distance on a range of issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major political corruption scandals were a common occurrence in postwar Japan. After the 1990s, policy failure scandals generated by bureaucratic rather than political corruption became more common. Among the crucial ingredients in generating policy failure scandals was the role of interparty competition and the functioning of a two-party system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars of distributive politics in Japan have shifted from large items in the general account budget to more geographically targeted spending known as intergovernmental transfers. However, a portion of the funds sent to prefectural governments are ostensibly determined by the apolitical ‘financial index’. However, even though the financial index is included in most studies of intergovernmental transfers, only slight attention focuses on the financial index and its determination. Using prefectural level data on intergovernmental transfers, economic indicators and electoral support for the LDP, this research shows that the LDP possesses strong incentives to manipulate the index and that politics is a significant determinant of the financial index. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]