1

The Third Bi-Annual Conference of

The Israeli Association for Japanese Studies (IAJS)

Galapagosizing Japan?

The Challenges of Participation and the Costs of Isolation

May 12-13, 2015, Tel Aviv University

Gilman-Humanities Building, Room 496

Language of the Conference: Japanese, English, Hebrew

Abstracts

(by order of appearance in the conference)

Keynote (Japanese and English)

[Escape to Saga Stories in Japan's Subcultures]

Eiji Otsuka, Nichibunken, Kyoto, Japan

In this lecture, I propose outlining a process that began with the failure of the left

wing activities in early 1970s Japan, extending into the 1980s, in which the generation

of former left wing activists and zenkyt protestors began constructing "imagined saga narratives" within the worlds of Japanese subcultures. This was the starting point

of the contemporaneous historical revisionism in Japan. More concretely, by referring

to the first trilogy by Murakami Haruki, Nakagami Kenji, Gundam anime series,

anime by Ghibli Studio etc., I will show how subcultures and subcultural literature

experimented with the "virtual story" and not with "the real history". It provided the

origin of the that underlined the Aum Shinriky Incident in the 1990s. Aum committed a coup d'tat based on a narrative that replaced "actual history" with a

2

subcultural "virtual history". This was the starting point of the contemporaneous

historical revisionism in Japan.

The Galapagos Syndrome in the Economic Sphere (English)

The Digital Galapagos: Japan's Digital Media and Digital Content Economy

Carin Holroyd, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada and Ken Coates,

University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada

Japan was, for almost twenty years, a leading nation in the development of the digital

economy. The country's business development on mobile computing, video gaming

and video games, and animation led the world. While this prominent role continues,

the country has struggled with a "digital island" reality in three areas: the wireless

industry, which tried but failed to expand globally, an active by Japan-focuses digital

content sector, and digital services, which have not expanded as expected to non-

Japanese markets. This paper examines the evolution of Japan's digital media and

digital content sector, focusing on national government economic strategies, business

development and international business expansion strategies, and the intersection of

digital media and Japanese culture, which has created significant global interest but

less business development than expected. The Japanese experience is presented in the

context of the globalization of Taiwan's digital media business, the rise of Korean

digital content internationally, and the continued growth of China in the increasingly

valuable sector.

Overcoming the Tension between International and Domestic Pressures: Responses

of Audit Firms in Japan

Israel Drori, College of management Academic Studies Rishon LeZion, Israel, and

Masaru Karube, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan

Reality is always two-sided. Japanese firms had been highly praised for their

competitive edge based on technological capabilities characterized by technocentrism.

Now the direction in which its scientific and technological development is taking

society is a focus of criticism. To explore the issues of how and why some Japanese

firms in some industries show Galapagos Syndrome, we examine the conditions and

the mechanism by which such uniqueness could hinder the further growth of Japanese

firms as they compete with the rest of the world.

3

By shedding light on the globalization process of the Japanese audit industry as

an example of an underexplored field (even in management studies), we examine the

historical process of how Japanese audit firms have overcome the tensions between

international and domestic pressuresin response to the globalization of client firms

and competition with global audit firms from the 1960s to now. In this paper, we find

that 1) audit firms had to tackle globalization even at the early stage of the industry,

which had been highly regulated and protected from foreign competitors, because

they had to respond to the growing needs of the globalized activities of client firms; 2)

the recent trendepitomized by the growing size and complexity of client businesses,

deregulation, and the convergence of accounting practices, which drove them to be

fully integrated as partner firms under the global audit firm network.

Our findings suggest that 1) the degree of "Galapagosization" depends not only

on historical and structural contexts (domestic regulations, market structure, size of

local markets), but also depends on the characteristics of products, services, practices,

and clients' needs.

We Cannot Use Japanese ATMs! Japans Developmentalist Legacy and Galapagos

Retail Banking

Hiroaki Richard Watanabe, University of Sheffield, UK

This paper explains why Japanese ATM services are poor and insulated in a

Galapagos way by examining Japans financial regulatory system and economic

ideologies. The Japanese government maintained the convoy system in financial

regulation based on the protection of inefficient banks through informal non-market

coordination until it introduced the financial Big Bang (Toya 2006), which liberalized

Japanese financial services, and market-oriented financial supervision (Amyx 2004)

amid the financial crisis in the late 1990s. However, financial liberalization through

the Big Bang was limited to wholesale banking and did not really affect retail banking.

At the same time, despite greater market mechanisms in financial supervision,

competition and market mechanisms have not been introduced in retail banking. ATM

services by Japanese banks are more or less the same and their quality is low. Most

Japanese ATMs do not operate 24 hours/365 days unlike ATMs in many other

countries, customers have to pay fees to use ATMs in the evenings and weekends

even if they have bank accounts, and with only a couple of exceptions, Japanese

ATMs do not accept non-Japanese bank cards even in this era of globalization. This

situation did not change when Japan co-hosted the World Cup with South Korea in

2002 and only recently did Japans three mega banks announce to introduce ATMs

4

that would accept non-Japanese bank cards by the time of Tokyo Olympics 2020. The

paper argues that this insulated Galapagos phenomenon is a result of the remaining

convoy system in Japanese retail banking and a legacy of developmentalism (Jonson

1982) aimed at realizing producers economic interests at the cost of consumers.

Theoretically, this phenomenon can be explained with the theory of regulation

(Rosenbluth 1989) based on an analysis of collective action.

Cross-Cultural Encounters in Film Arts (English)

Voluntary Death in the Japanese Film after World War II: Transformations of the

Suicide Aesthetics

Anastasiya Skavysh, Freie Universitt Berlin, Germany

Western and Japanese writings on ritual suicide tend to focus on the cultural roots of

this cultural phenomenon in the ethics of pre-modern Japan. This point of view which

puts in direct comparison a phenomenon of Japanese aesthetics of pre-modern times

with that of modern times seems to me simplified and ahistorical.

In this research the representation of suicide in the Japanese film is brought in

connection with the body discourse nikutai () of the postwar period and the

radical cinema of the 60s. It can be assumed that the elements of the erotic and the

physical as they are found in the radical postwar aesthetics modified the

representation of suicide as a phenomenon which has its cultural roots in pre-modern

Japan. The act of suicide as it is shown in the films of the second half of the 20th

century combined elements of Japanese tradition and Western ideas to create new

aesthetics. The focus has shifted from the dramatic conflict of giri and j to the

depiction of physical decay and destruction which is deployed for political ideas.

How is the suicide related to its cultural roots in pre-modern Japan by the

visual construction and throughout the film story? How is the death theme related to

the discourses of history and power? What stance do the films take to the death

ideology in the period of the Japanese nationalism? How are the concepts sexuality

and death related to the idea of an individual happiness?

The Toei-Tezuka Trilogy: Three Films that Paved the Way to the Global Appeal of

Anime

Raz Greenberg, The Orthodox College, Jerusalem, Israel

5

Japanese animation (anime) is considered today as one of the country's leading

cultural exports, but this hasn't always been the case. In fact, in the post-war period,

Japanese animation studios had struggled to find an audience outside Japan and Toei

animation, the biggest animation studio founded in the country by some of its most

prominent animators, consistently failed in exporting its productions to both

neighboring Asian countries and the American film market. It was manga artist

Osamu Tezuka (1928-1989) who was the first to successfully export Japanese

animation to foreign markets with the 1964 television adaptation of his iconic series

"TetsuwanAtomu" ("Astro Boy").

Before the global success of "Atomu", however, Tezuka collaborated with

Toei in the production of three animated features "Sayuki" (1960), "Sinbad no

Boken" (1962) and "Wan WanChushingura" (1963). While largely overlooked, and

relatively obscure to the audience outside Japan ("Sayuki" and "Sinbad no Boken"

were distributed in America, but as with other such distribution attempts by Toei,

failed to make significant impression), these three films demonstrate the later

direction that Tezuka has set for himself and the rest of the anime industry, which set

this industry on the path to global success: they show gradual movement away from

both narrative and design elements that can be considered exclusively Japanese to

elements that are modeled after foreign (especially American) animation, while

keeping most of their Japanese themes as subtext, rather than on the surface. The

presentation offers an examination of all three films, and their long-term influence on

subsequent anime productions.

De-Glapagosization: Adachi Masao and Eric Bodelaire, Boundary-Crossing

Collaboration

Ayelet Zohar, Tel Aviv University, Israel

: '

, ,

.( ' 9191 )

- .( ,9199 ,' . )

9191 ,9111 , , ,

79 , , ' , .

. , ,

, ' : ' ,

, ,

. '

6

,

. ,

,' . ,

" "

.

, , ,

, - , .

,9191 , ,

." " ,

, ,) (

,

' .

, -91 .

Unwrapping Japan's International Politics in a Changing World (English)

Japanese Defense Policy in a "Brown Bag"

Alon Levkowitz, Bar Ilan University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Japan's defense policy has changed throughout the years from (inactive) "pacifism" to

"normal state", to what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe calls "active pacifism". These

changes were made by expanding the boundaries of Article 9, which on the one hand

serves as a constraint to Japan's defense policy and on the other hand as a pacifier for

the regional states that were concerned that Japan might revive its militant ambitions.

The change in Japan's role in the international arena and the pressure the United

States has exerted on Japan to become a more active player were two main factors

that led to an incremental change in its defense policy. Another factor in the last two

decades was the increasing security threat from North Korea that forced Japan to

expand the boundaries of its self-defense policy and even consider a preemptive strike

against the DPRK in case an imminent threat arises.

Japan's defense policy, until the current administration, was functioning like the

United States "brown bag" beer system. As long as Japan doesn't use militant rhetoric

and it does not pose a potential threat to the regional players, it was allowed to

incrementally change its defense policy. The current Japanese administration began to

unveil the "brown bag" defense policy.

The paper will discuss the changes within Japan's defense policy and analyze

how Japan's self-defense policy handled the potential Chinese threat and the rising

7

North Korean security threat, which allowed it to unwrap the "brown bag" and

become a "normal state".

Beyond East Asia:Sino-Japanese Rivalry in the Middle East

Kai Schulze, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

The mounting rivalry between Japan and China has been a dominant aspect of Japans

foreign relations since the early 1990s. A vast body of literature has analyzed this

issue predominantly within the East Asian region. However; if, why and how this

Sino-Japanese power struggle also affects Japans foreign policy approach beyond

East Asias regional boundaries defies theoretical and empirical analysis. To improve

explanations of the effects of Chinas emergence to great power on Japans cross-

regional foreign policy approach, this paper explores the changes in Japans cross-

regional relations to the Middle East in the light of Chinas rising power. In three

interrelated case studies, the proposed project will elucidate the effects of Japans

rivalry with China on the construction and formulation of interests and strategy

development, as well as the generation and implementation of foreign policy

measures towards the Middle Eastern region against the background of Chinas rise.

By merging the strings of Japans readjustment of its Middle East policy and its

increasing rivalry with China, the proposed project offers a new perspective on the

increasingly important discussion on Japans reactions to Chinas rise but also more

broadly on discussions about the new global distribution of power and changing

hierarchies of the international system. To develop and improve explanations of the

mutual influences of Japan's and China's foreign policy in the Middle East, the project

addresses two important but understudied questions: First, how do interstate rivalries

influence foreign policy approaches beyond regional boundaries? Second, through

which factors does the Sino Japanese rivalry change or sustain Japan's Middle East

policy? In order to give answers to these questions, the theoretical framework of this

paper combines definitions of interstate rivalry, the construction of state interests and

the concept of interregionalism without regions.

Cross Cultural Readings of Philosophy and Critical Theory (English)

The Conundrums of Tetsugaku, or: Why Japanese Philosophers are Always

Wrong(ed)

Raji C. Steineck, University of Zurich, Switzerland

8

On any but an openly racist list of criteria, Japan could aspire to be one of the major

loci of philosophy. In spite of this, its relevant premodern traditions have usually been

subsumed under categories other than philosophy, such as thought, religion, ethics, or shis. In the modern era, the term Japanese philosophy was virtually ursurped by the distinctly parochialist Kyoto School, which has received most

attention by Western commentators and translators. In contrast, non-parochial

tetsugaku or professional academic philosophy in Japan is widely regarded as a

largely sterile scholastic discourse that only regurgitates Western models, and some

Japanese universities have moved to replace this unpopular discipline by other, less

narrowly defined subjects.

All this is not due to the lack of originality or philosophical substance in the

pertinent Japanese literature. It is, or so I shall argue, more a question of the historical

timing of contacts between Japanese and Western philosophers, and the discursive

formations in place at crucial instances on the trajectory of the globalization of

Western and Japanese philosophies. This leaves Japanologists with the task of

understanding the mechanisms at work that seem to always place tetsugaku in

awkward spots, and to correct philosophical historiographies and amend canons that

exclude it.

Marx and the Fate of Critical Theory in Japan

Elena Louisa Lange, University of Zurich, Switzerland

This paper seeks to draw attention to the curious, yet significant gap between the

abundant and fruitful adaptation of the Marxian Critique of Political Economy and the

hesitant and sporadic reception of classical Critical Theory in 20th century Japan by

looking at the various responses of Japanese critical sociology to economical crisis

and its theoretization. This attempt will be conducted by giving an overview of the

history of critical social theory in Japan after the War (1950s-1960s) and today (ca.

1980s-2011), its shortcomings and selective reproduction of theses known as the

'canon' of Critical Theory in the West, as well as arguing that the theoretical

negligence especially of the theorem of reification and fetishism a central issue of Adorno's and Horkheimer's theoretical endeavor led to a truncated understanding of the capitalist present in modern Japan.

Research in the Critique of Political Economy has been performed

enthusiastically ever since Capital had been first translated into Japanese in 1920.

Notwithstanding military oppression and the tenk (turnaround) policy of the Japanese ultranationalist government during the early Shwa period (1930-1945), its defeat and Japan's subsequent occupation by US administrative forces in the post-War

period, the Marxian analysis has remained a vital part of critical intellectual life

before and after the war. Oddly enough, the theories of what we could now call

classical, first generation Critical Theory, an eminent part of Marxian tradition, and

embodied in the work of Max Horkheimer, T.W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Alfred

9

Sohn-Rethel, and others, have however not been given much attention in Japanese

academic theoretical formation after the War. To give a striking example: the first

translation of The Dialectic of Enlightenment in Japan appeared as late as 1990.

By examining the conditions of social sciences after the war, this paper aims to

point out the reasons for this hesitant appropriation by critically addressing the cleft of

capitalism-centered theories as performed by pre-War and post-War Marxists as well

as psychological theories of fascism as a collective pathological phenomenon,

performed by modernity theorists such as Maruyama Masao or Otsuka Hisao

(Maruyama 1946, Otsuka 1946). By suggesting that the cleft could not be closed with

the rising popularity of social psychology (1950s-1960s), Habermasian Theory of

Communitative Action (1970s-1980s) or the post modern thought of Associationism

(Karatani) (1990s-today), this paper will also ask if the present political crisis,

expressed in the nationalist backlash of the Abe government, could be explained by

Japanese critical theory's shortfall in providing an attempt to integrate the problem of

capitalist thought-forms, such as the commodity form, into its theories of fascism and

vice versa.

The paper will argue that the negligence of this problem setting continues to

haunt the critical political climate in Japan today.

Japanese Architecture: Beyond and Within Japan (Hebrew)

Japanese Architecture as an International Ambassador of Cool Japan policy:

The case-study of Kisho Kurokawa in planning The New Wing of Van Gogh

Museum in Amsterdam

Sigal Galil, Independent multidisciplinary researcher, Israel

Does Kisho Kurokawas Abstract Symbolism succeeds in implementing Cool Japan Values, aimed to conquering the Western heart? Does the pleasing architectural

experience of the New Wing of Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Planned by

Kurokawa realize his Philosophy of Symbiosis as a sort of resolution to the charged

relations between East and West ? Through the lines and forms, the full and empty spaces of the building Ill try

to read how Kurokawa uses Japanese aesthetics as a power field, and activist strategic

philosophy for leverage of wide rainbow of interests. Starting with Japanese national

interests, and going on with personal interests of worldwide prestigious reputation. In

my lecture I will demonstrate how Kurokawa turns his building into a political text, a

Japanese Manifest, aimed subversively to please millions of visitors at the van Gogh

Museum, experiencing the secrets of Japanese Aesthetics. Philosophic reading of the building will show the Invisible thread that Kisho

Kurokawa weaves, that connects between architecture, philosophy, and culture in one

of the most touristic monuments in the heart of Amsterdam .

11

eht revo lla morf elpoep fo snoillim rof etis egamirglip A ,muesuM hgoG naV

detacol si ,yrotsih namuh fo seoreh larutluc tsetaerg eht fo eno pihsrow ohw ,dlrow

suomaf eht dna tra nredom fo muesuM kjiledetS eht dna muesuM skjiR eht neewteb

fo egatireh larutluc eht fo traeh gnitaeb eht ,wuobegtrecnoC llah trecnoc lanoitan

.dnalloH larutcetihcra sih ni gnidliub tnereffid dna ralugerri eht fo stiart ehT

tfoS eht sa noitcnuf ot seirt erutcetihcra sawakoruK woh wohs lliw sgnidnuorrus eht fo egaugnal lausiv euqinu eht yb woh dna ,ycilop ngierof napaJ fo rewoP larutluc nretsew fo traeh eht ta sdoc larutluc esenapaJ sdaol eh ecapS esenapaJ .dnalloH ni ssertrof

" : napaJ looC"

, ,

" , , , . , ,

" , ." ... , ,

.

, , , , .

,

? napaJ looC ,

?

,

,

.

. , ,

.

,

. ,

,

, , ,

.

,

napaJ fo rewoP tfoS

" "

.

11

2020

, , , , , , ,

Discourses Around Modernist Built Legacy Before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics

Erez Golani Solomon, Waseda University, Japan and Bezalel Academy of Arts and

Design, Jerusalem, and Christian Dimmer, Tokyo University, Japan

On September 7, 2013 the International Olympic Committee announced that Tokyo

would host the 7171 Summer Olympics. Although less than two years have passed

since then, the announcement appears to have catalyzed a significant re-evaluation of

heritage conservation in Japan, and in particular of its modernist iconic buildings and

infrastructure built in the 1950s and 60s. Structures that have been completed in the

context of another key moment in Japans modern historynamely the 1964 Tokyo

Olympicshad so far only been appreciated by a handful of academics, professionals

and architecture tourists but werent broadly recognized as valuable historical assets

worthy of material preservation. Significant modernist buildings have been steadily

and quietly disappearing for years, without much ado, or public protest. It seems that

the decision to host the summer Olympic Games once again after 56 years has created

a sincere sensitivity to the post-war built legacy. Ironically, this novel preservation

effort is only paralleled by a similar sense of urgency that had these structures built in

anticipation of the mega events of 1964.

The lecture explores the new wave of heritage conservation from two

perspectives. On the one side it examines the inclusion of heritage as a central

category in Tokyos failed bid of 2009 and the following successful bid of 2013. Here,

along with the declared intension to re-use 1964 Olympic facilities such as Kenzo

Tanges Yoyogi National Gymnasium or Mamoru Yamadas Nippon Budokan Hall

[Arena for traditional Japanese martial arts] heritage functions also as part of a

dubious language that appeals to a global common sense for preservation, without

feeling a genuine commitment to this cause. On the other side the chapter examines

those heritage discourses that have been spurred around controversial events such as

the imminent destruction of Yoshiro Taniguchis Hotel Okura [1962] or Mitsuo

Katayamas National Stadium [1958], and the adoption of Zaha Hadids plans for the

new Olympic Stadium. It looks at a new and rich preservation rhetoric of post-war

architecture as well as important infrastructures like the inner city expressway system

or the Tsukiji fish market and sets them against the background of a new national

12

image being currently constructed around ideals such as environmentality and

maturity.

, :" "

, ,

Galapagos Homes: Recent Japanese Houses "Post International Style"

Architect Arie Kutz, Tel Aviv University, Israel

A wide range of Japanese architects, all born after WW 2, are producing in recent

years extra ordinary architectural solutions in the field of private houses. They are

enthusiastically accepted by the professional media and well exposed internationally.

What is striking about most of them is that the extreme architectural solutions, usually

common to most of them, do not seem to be possible anywhere outside Japan... "this

can be accepted only in Japan" is a reaction usually heard.

The materials used are surprising (10 mm steel plate), the climatic performance

are sometimes questionable (walk out doors for the bath), the approach to privacy

(visual and acoustical) is non-conventional, etc.

This paper will introduce some of the architects and these "extreme"

architectural solutions and will try to understand the profile of the Japanese client

ready to accept these extreme solutions and prefer them over the common market's

available prefabricated homes

The History of Science from a Japanese Perspective (English)

Chase after Tools and Sources for Studying Japanese History of Science

Yona Siderer, Independent Researcher, Israel

In an attempt to understand Japanese culture and the evolution of its scientific

terminology, an exciting chase that can be compared to a detective story of collecting

evidences from various sources is underway. My research on adapting science from

the West in Japan in the 19th

century has carried me to many places in Japan and other

countries. In order to form new scientific disciplines new terminology had to be

coined. My lecture will show (i) routes to obtain research documents and (ii) the

importance of comparing these sources that were written in several European

languages. In the following examples, the lecture will present 18th

-19th

century

13

explanation of what is light and on routes to reach the original documents which

were used in this study.

1. A Speech on the Japanese Nation 1784 delivered by the botanist Thunberg.

Original Swedish hand written faccimillia and its English translation are

presented in a book of 2007, published by The Swedish Royal Academy of

Sciences in Stockholm. The beautiful red bound book was donated to the

Japanese Emperor on his visit in Sweden.

2. Translations of Lavoisier French Chemistry book of 1789 into English, Dutch,

and Japanese. Documents describing light were gathered from the British

Library, London; Kyo-U Library of Takeda Science Foundation in Osaka;

National French Library Website. Changes of terms and descriptions in the

various versions shed light on Japanese and others understanding of science

at that time.

3. Roscoes Chemistry book of 1871 and its Japanese translation of 1873. Griffis

teaching chemistry in Fukui, asked his sister Maggie in a letter to Philadelphia

to send him that book in July 1871. Recently I received a Japanese translation

from a Kyoto University scholar and a digitized English copy from Oxford

University Press Website.

The Transformation of Organic Chemistry in Japan: From Locality to Universality

Masanori Kaji, Graduate School of Decision Science and Technology, Tokyo Institute

of Technology, Japan

Majima Riko (18741962) graduated from the Department of Chemistry at the

College of Science at Tokyo Imperial University in 1899. After a four-year stay (1907

to early 1911) in Europe, he became a professor of organic chemistry at the newly

established Tohoku Imperial University in March 1911. He was one of leading

research organic chemists of the first generation in Japan, and became famous,

especially for his study of urushiol, the main component of the sap of the Japanese

lacquer tree. His research strategy involved studying the structure of the components

of Japans local natural products using newly developed methods from Europe to

catch up and compete with chemists in more advanced-countries in the West.

Majimas approach became the primary research method employed by research

chemists in Japan until the 1950s.

After Fukui Ken-ichi received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in Japan in 1981,

six other Japanese chemists also went on to receive the same award. These chemists

all discovered and developed new methods or theories from the 1950s to the 1970s.

14

During the period between 1906, when Majima thought out his research strategy and

attempted to apply it to urushiol, and 1950, when Tsuda Kyosuke (19071999) started

to study tetrodotoxin, the poison from puffer fish, the Japanese became well prepared

to compete on an equal footing with their Western counterparts without taking

advantage of locality; Majimas approach gave some lead time to those chemists with

good accessibility to natural products for their research. Organic chemistry in Japan

completed its transformation at the end of the 1950s, and since then, Japanese

chemists reached the stage of universality and began to study equally in terms of

facilities and theoretical settings with overseas top researchers.

Japan as a Multilayered Democracy (English)

What is Multilayer Analysis? The Case of Japan

Sigal Ben Rafael-Galanti, Beit Berl College, Israel

As one of the earliest non-Western countries to adopt democracy, Japan provides an

excellent case-study for formulating theories about democracy. Hence, while some

researchers, such as Reed, Curtis and Kohno, argue that "culture" and traditions play a

very limited role in the way Japanese democracy functions, Inatsugu, Blechinger,

Pempel and others point out Japans difficulties in developing liberal values.

In this direction, in the volume Japans Multilayered Democracy, we ask -

together with Nissim Otmazgin and Alon Levkowitz - two central questions: (1) what

constitutes Japanese democracy and what are its historical, institutional, and

behavioral expressions?; and (2) what can we extrapolate from the Japanese

experience about democratization and the very nature of democracy?

Furthermore, we suggest addressing those questions through an integrative

model that refers in tandem to different angles, epochs, and disciplines to be called

here a multilayered analysis. It enables learning about Japan through its historical

roots, postwar institutions, and its civic and cultural expressions.

Such an approach we contend is able to evaluate Japans democracy in

depth, contribute to the ongoing discussion about non-Western societies capabilities

to become genuine democracies, and is likely to ameliorate the analysis of

democracies and their comparisons.

Failures in Leadership: How and why Politicians Equivocate on Japanese

Televised Political Interviews?

15

Ofer Feldman, Dshisha University, Japan

This paper examines how Japanese leading politicians cope with the communicative

problems posed to them during televised political interviews. Based on data gathered

for 14 months during 2012-2013, the paper replicates and modifies the "Theory of

Equivocation" to detail the responsiveness of both national and local level politicians

(and for comparison purposes also of nonpoliticians) to interview questions they are

asked on live broadcast shows. The paper's main focus is on the extent to which

Japanese politicians equivocate during televised programs, and the reasons underlying

this equivocation. It aims to identify the motives behind interviewees' equivocation,

thereby to also assess the significance of these talk shows in the broader context of

political communication in Japan.

Building Democracy through "Pink Power": Dynamic Gender in Japan's Women's

Politics

Ayala Klemperer, Tel Aviv University, Israel

The paper examines the work of prominent female politicians who adopt while at the

same time subvert femininity discourses in order to climb the Japanese political ranks

that are so often over-populated with men. It suggests that commonly used terms such

as "feminine" or "masculine" are not the only valid terms in which one can describe

women's politics, but rather that finer terminology needs to be recognized and

explored by politicians as well as scholars.

" :"

, - ,

- - , " ." , , " " . " " " "" " .

The Japanese Labor Tribunal System as a Litmus Test of Japan's Democratization

Wered Ben-Sade, Bar Ilan University, Israel

16

The Labor Tribunal System (LTS) is a speedy non-contentious tri-partite procedure

within Japan's district courts to mediate or otherwise suitably adjudicate individual

labor disputes. The LTS was introduced to cope with the multitude of employment

disputes that were lacking an adequate judicial resolution forum. By introducing such

a forum, the LTS provides protection for the weak party in labor relations (often the

worker) from abuse by the powerful party, and advances democratization of labor

relations. The Labor Tribunal Act (LTA, 2004) enactment process involved all

stakeholders in a consensus-building process, supporting Hararis (2002) argument:

Participation by sharing knowledge creation and information facilitates reform.

The LTS incorporates a civic expression of democracy via the tri-partite

structure that engages lay judges (albeit labor-relations experts) on an equal footing

with the professional judge. The unique resolution system, in which mediation and

adjudication closely interact, reflects Japans tradition of dispute resolution,

challenging Western concepts of democratic ideas, e.g., due process. Thus, these

aspects of the LTS, namely, the enactment process, civic participation structure and

consensus-based adjudication, provide a litmus test of Japan's ongoing

democratization process. Moreover, the nine years that have passed since the LTAs

implementation in 2006, enable an initial assessment of the role the LTS plays in

setting democratic norms and in encouraging democratic practices in other dispute

resolution systems.

The deviation of the LTS from Western concepts of dispute resolution seems

to constitute a step towards a new paradigm of the field. However, what does it tells

us about the nature of Japan's "maturing democracy" (Harari 2012)? I consider the

LTS not merely an effective tool to mediate labor-disputes without dealing too much

with questions of justice, but an important step towards democratization.