Discussion
On March 9, 2021, the 247th Japan Expert Seminar was held via webinar. The contents of the seminar are as follows.
After the post-Cold War, in the process of debating “right wing” in Japanese political society, questions were raised as to which of the terms such as conservative, right-leaning, right wing, and far-right is appropriate to call “right-wing people”. The presenter reviewed previous studies on how Japanese political and social researchers referred to them, and what terms could be used in international comparisons. In the existing research on Japanese politics, terms such as the LDP conservative/Social Party innovation/dovish/hawkish were used mainly focusing on ideologies such as security issues. However, after the emergence of political reform and historical revisionism in the 1990s, it became difficult to classify ideologies into political parties. In particular, after the 2nd Abe cabinet, various terms referring to factors such as the pros and cons of constitutional amendment and the basis of policy toward Asia have emerged.
In Japanese social studies, there was a context in which the term “right wing” was used to study the phenomenon, and the term “conservative movement” was mostly used in historical revisionism, exclusionism, and net right research. In international comparisons, in Europe, the force is referred to as the extreme right (radical right). Even in Japan, beings called "extreme right" have appeared since the 1990s, but they have become an aspect of the one-party dominance of the LDP.
In this context, the presenter stated on the possibility of using the concept of “conservative civil society,” as a term referring to the forces converging to the established conservative party while conducting policy proposals in need of a conservative review. Through this, it was seen that it was possible to understand the connection between the conservative forces including the far right and the Liberal Democratic Party, and to grasp the transformation of the concept of Japanese conservatives.
In the Q&A that followed after the presentation, the seminar ended with an explanation that the presenter needed to pay attention to the influence of the Emperor, who is still regarded as the center of Japan.
