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broader perspective, the fact that it was a historic event for the heir of the Japanese throne to travel to the West indicates that the tour took place during a pivotal period in Japan’s modern history. Two months after his return from Europe, Hirohito became regent, and in 1926 emperor. He would reign for nearly sixty-four years (1926–1989) as the Shōwa Emperor, 124th in a ‘line unbroken for ages past’ descended from the Sun
9 Interests, institutions and global warming Since 1988 Japan and Britain have responded to the common threat of global warming. Both countries voluntarily established a policy to tackle the problem before the adoption of the FCCC, and once it was established they developed and implemented policies and measures to meet its requirements as well as the goals they set for themselves. Given that it was a ‘framework’ Convention, Japan, Britain and all the other signatories were given considerable latitude in designing, developing and implementing policies and
school has proposed a hollowing out of the state (Rhodes 1997), while others have argued for the transformation or reconstitution of the state (Marsh et al. 2001; Sorensen 2004). Crucially though, the debate on the state and governance has not been significantly addressed in the analysis of Japan and its politics, where the tradition of pluralist and rational choice literature has continued to dominate. With the view that the state is the key locus of power in political arenas, my ontological perspective endorses the reconstituted-state thesis.1 Placing the core theme
6 Co-optation and exclusion: controlled policy integration in Japan To the extent that the problem of global warming arises from existing socio-economic activities, tackling it will entail an institutional metamorphosis towards a more sustainable form of socio-economic system. This will require a realignment of broad policy goals, which itself may require changes in policy-making institutions. Such changes have been referred to as policy integration, which is the theme of this chapter. The integration of environmental concerns into general economic policy in
and books appearing on new national and regional gothics, from Kiwi gothic to Florida gothic, Barcelona gothic to Japanese gothic, the wider context for this had not really been addressed. What were the conditions that had produced such a proliferation of gothics and what were the general implications of this proliferation for what the West had previously understood as ‘Gothic’? There was also
In Hamlet , Ophelia has nothing to do with the supernatural. She is not a witch, fairy or deity; nor does she return to life as a zombie or a ghost for revenge, in spite of the mistreatment and injustice she suffered in life. But in her afterlives in Japanese popular culture Ophelia has metamorphosed into a supernatural woman in various forms, such as a powerful sea goddess, a guardian of the tree of life and a grim reaper. This chapter explores these various afterlives, and contextualises Ophelia's metamorphosis from an innocent victim
shipping sailing to Japan, the richest market in the region, would be safe from attack. It was a sudden ending for a campaign that had begun in 1662 with oversized plans of carrying the war against Zheng Chenggong, or Koxinga as he was widely known, into the coastal waters of Japan itself, striking vessels where they were most vulnerable as they entered and exited key ports. The decision to halt the campaign stemmed from concerted pressure applied from Nagasaki. There, prohibitions against attacking Chinese vessels on their way to Japan, first articulated over a decade
The portrayal of Japan as ‘the nation of suicide’ is pervasive. In 1897, Émile Durkheim famously proclaimed that ‘the readiness of the Japanese to disembowel themselves for the slightest reason is well known’, 1 echoing the bushido tenet that ‘the Way of the Samurai is found in death’. 2 The notion of suicide as an attribute of manliness is inscribed into Japanese culture, the cultural normalisation of and permissive attitude towards it explained through the country’s religio
The Tokyo trial of Japanese leaders, 1946–48 7 An embarrassing necessity: the Tokyo trial of Japanese leaders, 1946–48 Peter Lowe In the middle of August 1945 Emperor Hirohito of Japan made an unprecedented radio broadcast to the Japanese people in which he informed his subjects that they must accept that Japan had experienced final defeat in the huge wars that had ravaged Eastern Asia and the Pacific. The dropping of the two atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, together with the decision of the Soviet Union to join the war against Japan
In 2003, with his eyes firmly set on an Academy Award for Best Actor, Tom Cruise took the eponymous lead in Edward Zwick’s The Last Samurai . A Union Army captain in the US Civil War, driven to alcoholism by the atrocities of the subsequent Indian Wars, this morally bifurcated man is invited to Japan to advise on the modernisation of the Emperor’s army, all part of the