Social Science Japan Journal Advance Access originally published online on May 19, 2008
Social Science Japan Journal 2008 11(1):49-68; doi:10.1093/ssjj/jyn018
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Social Science Japan Journal 11:49-68 (2008)
© 2008 Oxford University Press
The Politics of Political Knowledge: Exploring the Boundaries of Academic Inquiry into Japanese Politics in the Early Postwar Period
Hiroko TAKEDA is Lecturer in Japanese Studies at the University of Sheffield and concurrently Director of the research cluster on social change and transition in East Asia at the National Institute of Japanese Studies, an International Centre of Excellence between the Universities of Sheffield and Leeds. Her research interests include gender and politics/political economy in Japan and East Asia, social and political theories, and biopolitics. She is the author of The Political Economy of Reproduction in Japan: Between Nation-State and Everyday Life (RoutledgeCurzon 2005); ‘Governance through the Family in Japan: Governing the Domestic’, in Glenn D. Hook, ed., Contested Governance in Japan: Sites and Issues (RoutledgeCurzon 2005) and ‘Gendering the Japanese Political System: the Gender-Specific Pattern of Political Activity and Women's Political Participation,’ Japanese Studies 26(2): 185–198 (2006). Her latest article is coauthored with Glenn D. Hook, ‘"Self-responsibility" and the Nature of the Postwar Japanese State: Risk through the Looking Glass,’ Journal of Japanese Studies 33(1): 93–123 (2007). She can be reached at the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK, or by e-mail at h.takeda{at}sheffield.ac.uk
Glenn D. HOOK is Professor of Japanese Politics and International Relations and Director of the Graduate School of East Asian Studies, the University of Sheffield, UK. He is concurrently Director of the National Institute of Japanese Studies, an International Centre of Excellence between the Universities of Sheffield and Leeds. His research interests are in Japanese politics, international relations and security, particularly in relation to East Asia. He is the co-editor of Japanese Responses to Globalization (Palgrave 2006); one of the authors of Japan's International Relations: Politics, Economics and Security (Routledge 2005 [2nd ed.]) and editor of Contested Governance in Japan: Sites and Issues (RoutledgeCurzon 2005). His latest article is co-authored with Takeda Hiroko, ‘"Self-responsibility" and the Nature of the Postwar Japanese State: Risk through the Looking Glass,’ Journal of Japanese Studies 33(1): 93–123 (2007). He can be reached at the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK, or by e-mail at g.hook{at}sheffield.ac.uk
The academic knowledge of politics, including the study of Japanese politics, is mobilized by a range of actors in order to articulate the nature of political boundaries. How these boundaries are set is important for our understanding of the politics of political knowledge in Japan. The purpose of this article thus is to analyze how academics engaged in inquiry into Japanese politics have sought to define the scope of their studies by separating the study of politics from other activities by drawing boundaries in a way meant to settle the tension between academic inquiry and the act of politics. By exploring the boundaries set through these different academic endeavors, the article seeks to illuminate the distinguishing features of the academic inquiry into Japanese politics up to the 1960s.
* This is part of a larger project on the development of Japanese Studies in the postwar period. We are grateful to the Japan Foundation for financial support; to the support of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE); to our collaborators at the University of Munich, University of Leiden and University of Leeds; and to the three anonymous reviewers for their stimulating and insightful comments. This article is written in memory of the late Professor Takabatake Michitoshi, in particular, his teaching on the importance of political studies for citizens (shimin no tame no seijigaku).