Staatsverständnis in Japan

Despite its remoteness as a chain of islands in the Far East, Japan occupies an unusual place in the history of the world in terms of its national development. Historically influenced by Chinese civilisation, phases of great cultural receptiveness alternated with those of relatively introverted seclusion until modern times, whereby an independent concept of the state gradually emerged on the basis of Japan’s distinct awareness of it being a “divine country”. From the end of the 7th century, Japan’s idea of the state thus oscillated between two opposites: a rational state structure and an irrational national myth. This dual nature, which characterises the history of the Japanese state, culminated in the intellectual and political processes set in motion by Japan entering the Western system of states in the second half of the 19th century. Japan’s attempts at modernisation led to a concept of the state that was substantiated on the one hand by a modern form of constitutionalism based on the Prussian model and on the other hand by the peculiar idea of “kokutai”, which justified the Tenn?’s theocratic sovereignty.
This volume outlines the conflicting development of the Japanese concept of the state in the 19th and 20th centuries from different perspectives. It provides the reader with an in-depth background to the formation, collapse and revival of the Japanese state in the modern age and thereby offers an indispensable historical basis for understanding the political stances and objectives of contemporary Japan in an international context.

Contributors:
Harald Kleinschmidt, Noriko Kokubun, Ryuichi Nagao, Masanori Shiyake, Kazuhiro Takii, Kazuhide Uemura, Michael Wachutka, Eiko Yamada