Forced political reorientation in Japan :

Abstract

The research leads to the conclusion that the Occupation had considerable "product-affect" but little "system-affect, " that broad liberalization of the pre-war utranationalism was perhaps the most significant product of the Occupation but that the basic traditional socio-political loyalties survived and account in large measure for Japan's remarkable recovery as a leading industrial democracy.

Research methods are eclectic, qualitative, and historical. The work surveys all available published, unpublished, and documentary writings in English and Japanese which bear on the subject, including surveys of public opinion, government documents, diaries and memoirs of leading actors, and theoretical analyses by political scientists, sociologists, psychologists, and historians. Academic theories of acculturation and development are drawn on for a conceptual framework, particularly Almond and Verba's concepts of "product-affect" and "system-affect."

The military occupation of Japan after World War II, perhaps the most ambitious effort at imposed social change in world history, has been the topic of a voluminous literature but little has been done to examine whether the Occupation achieved its expressed goal of eliminating Japanese ultranationalism. This study investigates that question.

Leading themes covered include: (1) Characteristics of Japanese national consciousness (historical background, reaction to the West, Restoration era reshaping of Shinto and Kokutai, the national school system and "thought control"); (2) Forced political reorientation (impact of defeat, democratization by fiat, "humanization" of the Emperor, democratization of traditional mentality); (3) Persistence of Japanese national consciousness after the Occupation (growing national pride, national security concerns, racial implications); (4) National interest (national interest and international cooperation, trade war, liberalism in Japanese nationalism).