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The Socio-Political Role of the Buraku (Hamlet) in Japan*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Robert E. Ward
Robert E. Ward
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Extract

There presently exists in Japan an entire level of socio-political organization practically unknown to Westerners and little studied by the Japanese themselves until recent years. It comprises one of the lowest units of group organization in rural Japan and, in a practical everyday sense, plays a more immediate and important role in the daily lives of a larger proportion of the Japanese people than do any of the more formal and better known units of organization, such as the village, town, gun (county) or prefecture. This unit is known as the buraku, perhaps best rendered into English as hamlet.

Type
The Far Eastern Scene
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , December 1951 , pp. 1025 - 1040
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1951

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References

1 Law No. 67 of April 17, 1947.

2 Home Ministry Instruction No. 4 of January 22, 1947, and Cabinet Order No. 15 of May 3, 1947.

3 These computations are based on figures given by Jimukyoku, Tōkei Iinkai, Tōkeikyoku, Sōrifu, Nihon tōkei nenkan, 1949 [Statistical Yearbook of Japan, 1949], (Tōkyō Tōkei Kyōkai, 1949), pp. 56–57Google Scholar. Comparable and reliable figures for a more recent date will not become available until the detailed results of the census of October, 1950, are published.

4 Not all persons will, however. A few may have a relative standing for election in another buraku, in which case they are apt to vote for him. Others may have such a strong personal dislike for the buraku candidate that they will vote against him, while a very few will simply fail to vote. Voting rates are very high in Japanese village elections. A turnout of eighty to one hundred per cent of the electorate is quite common.

5 The available statistics on the 1947 local elections fail to distinguish in this respect between mayoralty campaigns at the city, town and village levels. Even so, however, there were 3,374 such jurisdictions out of a total of 10,419 (32 per cent) where no mayoralty election occurred because there was only a single candidate. Undoubtedly a large majority of such cases occurred at the village level. GHQ, SCAP, Government Section, Political Reorientation of Japan (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1949), Vol. 1, p. 331Google Scholar.