Digital Commons Network^™

Occupation During And After The War (China), Lukas K. Danner

Dr. Lukas K. Danner

No abstract provided.

Japan Chair Platform: Japan's Other Spending Problem, Gene Park

Gene Park

Since the collapse of the bubble economy in the early 1990s, a combination of declining revenue growth, fiscal stimulus, and growing budget commitments have made Japan the most indebted country of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Attention to Japan’s growing public debt problem increased in the wake of Greece’s sovereign debt crisis, and the issue of how to go about fixing Japan’s finances shot to the forefront during July’s Upper House election as competing political parties put forth ideas from trimming wasteful spending to increasing taxes to reducing budget deficits and debt. But until just a short …

Trust Deficit: Japanese Communities And The Challenge Of Rebuilding Tohoku, Daniel P. Aldrich

Daniel P Aldrich

Syllabus Inr 3224 (Rvc): International Relations Of East Asia (Spring 2016), Lukas K. Danner

Lukas K. Danner

It's Who You Know: Factors Driving Recovery From Japan's 11 March 2011 Disaster, Daniel P. Aldrich

Daniel P Aldrich

The 11 March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake affected dozens of coastal communities along the shore of Japan’s Tohoku region. Following the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdowns, utilities, businesses and schools in some towns have bounced back to pre-disaster capacity while other municipalities have lagged behind. The question of which factors accelerate the recovery of business, infrastructure and population after the disaster remains unanswered. This article uses a new dataset of roughly 40 disaster-affected cities, towns and villages in the area to identify the factors connected with recovery. More than tsunami damage, spending on disaster mitigation, population density, economic conditions …

A Normal Accident Or A Sea-Change? Nuclear Host Communities Respond To The 3/11 Disaster, Daniel P. Aldrich

Daniel P Aldrich

While 3/11 has altered energy policies around the world, insufficient attention has focused on reactions from local nuclear power plant host communities and their neighbors throughout Japan. Using site visits to such towns, interviews with relevant actors, and secondary and tertiary literature, this article investigates the community crisis management strategies of two types of cities, towns, and villages: thosewhich have nuclear plants directly in their backyards and neighboring cities further away (within a 30 mile radius). Responses to the disaster have varied with distance to nuclear facilities but in a way contrary to the standard theories based on the concept …

Japan's Distribution Challenge: Lessons From Abroad, Paul J. Scalise

Paul J. Scalise

No abstract provided.

Post-Crisis Japanese Nuclear Policy: From Top-Down Directives To Bottom-Up Activism, Daniel P. Aldrich

Daniel P Aldrich

Over the past fifty years, Japan has developed one of the most advanced commercial nuclear power programs in the world. This is largely due to the government’s broad repertoire of policy instruments that have helped further its nuclear power goals. These top-down directives have resulted in the construction of 54 plants and at least the appearance of widespread support for nuclear power. By the 1990s, however, this carefully cultivated public support was beginning to break apart. And following the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 and resulting nuclear crisis in the Fukushima nuclear complex, the political and social landscape for …

Hatoko Comes Home: Civil Society And Nuclear Power In Japan, Daniel P. Aldrich, Martin Dusinberre

Daniel P Aldrich

This article seeks to explain how, given Japan’s “nuclear allergy” following World War II, a small coastal town not far from Hiroshima volunteered to host a nuclear power plant in the early 1980s. Where standard explanations of conten- tious nuclear power siting decisions have focused on the regional power utilities and the central government, this paper instead examines the importance of historical change and civil society at a local level. Using a microhistorical approach based on interviews and archival materials, and framing our discussion with a popular Japanese television show known as Hatoko’s Sea, we illustrate the agency of municipal …

Japanese Liberal Democratic Party Support And The Gender Gap: A New Approach, Daniel P. Aldrich

Daniel P Aldrich

Scholars have argued that there is a broad gender gap in support for the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan. We uncover strong evidence that age, rather than gender, along with rural or urban location, serves as the most critical determinant of party support. Through logistic regression, propensity score matching and simulation techniques applied to four large-scale datasets; we demonstrate that age effects are consistent but slowly diminishing across cohorts between the mid-1970s and the early 2000s. As Japanese women and men age, they come to support the LDP at similar rates controlling for education, income and other demographic …

From Undemocratic To Democratic Civil Society: Japan's Volunteer Fire Departments, Mary Alice Haddad

Mary Alice Haddad

How do undemocratic civic organizations become compatible with democratic civil society? How do local organizations merge older patriarchal, hierarchical values and practices with newer more egalitarian, democratic ones? This article tells the story of how volunteer fire departments have done this in Japan. Their transformation from centralized war instrument of an authoritarian regime to local community safety organization of a full-fledged democracy did not happen overnight. A slow process of demographic and value changes helped the organization adjust to more democratic social values and practices. The way in which this organization made the transition offers important lessons for emerging democracies …

"L’Effondrement Du Parti Libéral-Démocrate Et Le Retour Du Politique Au Japon" Par Nishitani Osamu, Matthieu Forlodou

Matthieu Forlodou

Le texte proposé est la traduction de l'article écrit par Nishitani Osamu (philosophe, professeur à l’Université des langues étrangères de Tokyo (Japon), membre correspondant de l’IEA de Nantes), et publié dans le numéro 797 (novembre 2009) de la revue "Sekai" (Le monde). L'auteur revient sur les dernières élections législatives qui se sont tenues cet été au Japon. Il fournit au lecteur quelques clés pour comprendre "l'alternance politique" qui s'est produite à la suite de ces élections. Il replace le vote des Japonais dans une perspectives plus large de retour du Politique dans leur société, après plus de 50 ans de …

Location, Location, Location: Selecting Sites For Controversial Facilities, Daniel P. Aldrich

Daniel P Aldrich

While a large literature exists on the siting of controversial facilities, few theories about spatial location have been tested on large samples. Using a new dataset from Japan, this paper demonstrates that state agencies choose localities judged weakest in local civil society as host communities for controversial projects. In some cases, powerful politicians deliberately seek to have facilities such as nuclear power plants, dams, and airports placed in their home constituency. This paper then explores new territory: how demographic, political, and civil society factors impact the outcomes of siting attempts. It finds that the strength of local civil society impacts …

The Crucial Role Of Civil Society In Disaster Recovery And Japan’S Preparedness For Emergencies, Daniel P. Aldrich

Daniel P Aldrich

This article is concerned with the empirical puzzle of why certain neighborhoods and localities recover more quickly than others following disasters. It illuminates four mainstream theories of rehabilitation and resilience, and then investigates a neglected factor, namely the role of social networks and civil society. Initial analyses underscore the important role of trust and connectivity among local residents in the process of rebuilding. After examining the role of civil society in Japan’s preparedness for emergencies, the article concludes with some policy recommendations for governments and nongovernmental actors involved in disaster relief.

Mars And Venus At Twilight: A Critical Investigation Of Moralism, Age Effects, And Sex Differences, Daniel P. Aldrich, Rieko Kage

Daniel P Aldrich

Analysts have long sought to understand whether women and men have different ethical orientations. Some researchers have argued that women and men consistently make fundamentally different ethical judgments, especially of corruption; others have found no such disparities. This study considered whether an individual’s age may also play a role in determining his or her moral judgment. A statistical investigation of interactive effects between gender and age in a nationally representative data set from Japan shows that this interaction functions better as a predictor of moralism than does education or gender alone. Older individuals of both sexes were found to have …