Nambara Shigeru was a rara avis of Japanese liberal academics at hard times in that he survived difficult times without being punished by the oppressive government in the pre-war Japan and the occupation authorities in the immediate post-war Japan. He specialized in Western political philosophy especially in Immanuel Kant and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, known as proponents of German idealism and nationalism. His magnum opus was published, without being punished, in 1944, arguing that the Nazi politics was totally against the Western political tradition. In 1945–46, he made clear his opposition to the draft new Constitution in which the emperor be symbolic and the armed forces be abolished. In 1949–1950, he made clear his view that Japan, once Japan admitted to the United Nations, what would become Japanese Self-Defense Forces should donate portions to what would become United Nations Peace Keeping Operations. On the basis of his writings in the war period and the occupation period, comparisons of his positions with Roger Scruton, Vladislav Surkov, Yanaihara Tadao, Akamatsu Kaname, Nitobe Inazo, and Yanagida Kunio on such concepts as democracy promotion, national self-determination, peace keeping are attempted to see the extent to which the pent-up Wilsonian moment burst in the immediate post-war period.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, individual scholars and research institutes have conducted numerous public opinion surveys to monitor how global citizenries react to the process of democratization taking place in their own countries and elsewhere. This article reviews the various issues surrounding the divergent conceptions of democracy among political scientists and ordinary citizens, and synthesizes significant findings of the conceptual and empirical research based on these surveys. It also raises a set of new questions that future surveys should address to broaden and deepen our knowledge about citizen conceptions of democracy.

State revenue production since the third wave of democratization contrasts sharply with the experiences of the first and second waves of democratization. The late democratizers tend to adopt and raise revenue from a regressive tax on consumption (the value-added tax: VAT), which is more compatible with economic development in global markets but is considered as unequal taxation. How does the weak redistributive (i.e., regressive) effect of this form of taxation affect the welfare of people? We build on the conventional wisdom that democratic accountability through multiparty contestation improves human development. Focused on taxation, we argue that an increasing state financial capacity contributes to an increase in human development, even when electoral contestation is absent. Empirical analyses employed a reduction in infant mortality as an indicator for the improvement of human development and demonstrate the counter-intuitive effect of the VAT on human development. Despite the effect of weak redistribution, the VAT contributes to human development in countries with less democratic accountability. The results also show that the state's financial capacity to secure tax compliance, rather than a mere increase in tax revenue, intervenes critically in such development in countries since the third wave. We conclude that the increased state financial capacity with regressive taxation is expected to promote human development in newly emerging democratic states.

Performance-based retrospective voting is a fundamental mechanism of democracy. A good deal of scholarship has examined this electoral mechanism, but the extant studies have two omissions. First, there is little research that considers several retrospective evaluations together using an incumbent voting model. Second, there is little research that examines the difference in the effects of voters’ retrospective evaluations on two different ballots in mixed electoral systems. To fill these omissions, this article tests a comprehensive retrospective performance voting model in a mixed electoral system. Specifically, this article examines the effects of voters’ retrospective economic evaluations of economic performance at the national and personal levels, human rights, corruption, welfare protection, and foreign policy on vote choice for the incumbent party in the 2016 Korean legislative election in which voters had two ballots: one for the party list vote and one for the district vote. By using multinomial logistic regression models, this article finds that among the six retrospective evaluation categories, judgments of national economic performance at the national level, human rights, and foreign policy have a statistically significant impact on the likelihood of voting for the incumbent party in party list vote choice, whereas only voters’ evaluation of foreign policy matter in the district level vote decision. The results imply that Korean voters consider various aspects of government performance, such as the conditions of human rights and relationships with other countries, rather than just focusing on the economy. The retrospective voting behavior of Korean voters differs between party list and district level ballots.

Japan's labor market has been under severe strain over the past few decades, driven by its protracted economic recession, a series of labor market reforms, and changing labor management practices. Confronting these new challenges, an increasing number of young people have had extreme difficulties in searching for decent and stable jobs in the labor market, trapped in the vicious cycle of precarious employment. This paper examines the deterioration of employment and labor market conditions for Japan's youth after the collapse of the asset bubble in the early 1990s and the government's policy efforts to address these concerns, especially since the early 2000s, a period during which it has initiated a wide array of youth employment and labor market policies. In particular, it analyzes variations in policy target group and goal across different measures and evaluates the effectiveness and limitations of these programs in dealing with youth problems in the labor market. This paper argues that while the government has promoted various policy tools to help young people become economically and socially independent individuals, it has gradually shifted its policy focus toward human capital development for growth and industrial competitiveness as a way of revitalizing Japan's troubling economy.

This introductory paper reviews the origin and development of the concept of authoritarian deliberation, and highlights the importance of culture and cultural tradition associated with public consultation. This paper summarizes and illustrates six key features of authoritarian deliberation in China. First, deliberation in China is a precarious balance between legal rule and state intervention. Second, the Party appeals to public reason to address and manage social conflict, and develop the soft coercion that accompanies much authoritarian deliberation. Third, this highly controlled deliberative process does, however, allow the freedom of local participants to find spaces for democratic expression, and local experiments to develop elements of deliberative democracy. Fourth, authoritarian deliberation is characterized by mutual instrumentalism. Fifth, there is an importance of an administrative and policy perspective in authoritarian deliberation. Six, the concept of authoritarian deliberation is not limited to China. There is the convergence in real-world deliberative process and outcome between authoritarian and liberal democratic systems.

This study addresses why small parties nominate candidates to run in the district elections and how nomination of district candidates could influence small parties’ share of party votes in Taiwan. Previous studies on party's strategic entry in the mixed electoral system demonstrate the existence of ‘contamination effect’ in various Western democracies. While ‘contamination effect’ suggests that party would gain more proportional representation (PR) seats by increasing its number of candidate nomination in the single-member-district (SMD) races, we contend that small parties should also take the strength of nominated candidates into consideration. Nominating strong candidates in SMD competitions could generate positive ‘spillover effect’ to party's PR tier. By focusing on the 2016 Taiwan legislative election, our findings suggest that first, small parties need to fulfill the institutional requirements in order to qualify for running in the party-list election; second, the ‘contamination effect’ exists in Taiwan, but it is conditional; and finally, candidates’ strength creates positive ‘spillover effect’ on party's proportional seats.

Chinese public hearings or consultations have been subject to numerous debates, doubts, and scepticism about the existence of Chinese deliberative democracy. More empirical evidence, however, is required about these debates before we can offer any meaningful account of the nature, characteristics, and direction of Chinese deliberation. In addition, although there have been many case studies on grassroots deliberative democracy, such studies are intellectually isolated from each other in the sense that they do not comprise a statistical unit. To overcome this deficiency, we developed a new research method for studying grassroots deliberation by collecting and validating the existing case studies, thereby making them a statistical unit. This paper aims to offer a big-picture perspective and the national statistical trend behind the uneven development of grassroots deliberative democracy. It develops an intellectual framework to assess whether grassroots deliberation is democratic. By collecting, validating, and coding 393 cases of Chinese grassroots deliberations, we have assessed Chinese grassroots deliberation, confirmed the cases’ democratic attributes, and provided a solid statistical result. Although there is strong evidence to support the claim that these grassroots deliberation experiments are democratic, there remain some variations, nuances, and shortcomings. The full picture is not simple, but instead provides a mixed perspective.

This article applies the concept of hybrid regimes to evaluate the state of political transition in Indonesia and Thailand. It aims to answer why the transition to democracy in Indonesia during 1999–2004 was successful, while the transition in Thailand during 1997–2006 culminated in a reversion to authoritarianism by examining the social profiles and formation of cabinet and parliament members as well as the design of constitutions. The study suggests that the lack of inclusiveness helps explain why democratization in Thailand was in failure. During the transition period, inclusiveness has not markedly increased because of the leadership strongman style, the flaws in the recruitment process, and the problem with the party system. This was unlike Indonesia, where cabinet, parliament, and multiparty system were able to include a variety groups and broad societal segments that played a significant role in deliberating political rules of the game. Indonesia's institutional rearrangements appear to sustain popular participation and engender momentum for fostering democracy, while Thailand's constitutional re-engineering contains many provisions to disempower the elected bodies. The perpetuation of the hybrid regime in Thailand is foreseeable as the hybridity satisfies the needs and concerns of the traditional elites and the urban middle class.

The political survival of Kim Jong-un's regime in North Korea has been a major international concern since his accession in 2012. While international research has endeavored to diagnose the stability of the regime based on its limitations and weaknesses due to political, economic, and international factors, studies based on baseline theoretical models of leadership stability have rarely been undertaken. This paper employs selectorate theory to address this issue, by identifying the selectorate and winning coalition in North Korea and illustrating their relationships with Kim Jong-un's political survival. To reexamine the analytical framework and results, this study has undertaken in-depth interviews with high-level North Korean defectors who have served in key power apparatuses of Kim Jong-il and/or Kim Jong-un's regime. It analyzes how frequent co-optation of top aides, economic ideologies, and policies are utilized for political survival. It further explains the correlation of his political survival with the party-dependent bureaucracy, internal reign of terror, development of nuclear capacity, and continuous military provocations. However, as the regime further intensifies the reign of terror, the possibility of a coup d’état by the selectorate and coalition cannot be completely ruled out.

This paper theoretically presents a new structure from the perspective of information on international standards with regards to the actual impact that election monitoring has on political change. Specifically, there is the point of view that after the election monitoring, a report is published, and as a result information relating to international standards of electoral integrity becomes clear in the countries subject to monitoring. Then if it becomes clear, for example, to one country that it is unable to meet the standards required by the international community then that country might abandon trying to meeting international requirements and its inclination toward authoritarianism might strengthen. Therefore, the clarification of information on the international standards of fair electoral integrity as a result of election monitoring could result in a shift toward authoritarianism. Through a case study, this paper shows that new interpretations of democratization in Africa can be advanced by its theoretical framework. Many African countries started to get rid of one-party systems or military dictatorships in the 1990s and to introduce multi-party elections. As a result, they held founding elections. What is often pointed out is that compared to the founding elections, the degree of fraud increased at the second elections. Although there has been no appropriate explanation, this paper suggests a theoretical explanation for this puzzling trend.

Political leaders and elites play an enormous role in shaping a country's political development. Participatory and deliberative governance represents a major trend of political development around the world; while many studies focus on the ordinary people involved in public deliberation, little is known about the roles elites play in facilitating or impeding the progress of this deliberation. Utilizing a new survey on Chinese officials, we offer the first empirical study that reveals Chinese officials’ perceptions and practices of deliberative democracy. We find that cultural and political traditions alongside personal and social factors have deeply shaped elites’ understandings of democracy, especially the new socialist deliberative democracy. Chinese officials understand democracy largely according to the Confucian tradition of minben and the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) political heritage of mass line, both of which emphasize that officials should listen to the people and make benevolent policies for them. While many embrace the significance of deliberative institutions for improving democratic governance, others emphasize the pragmatic value of consolidating the status quo, or believe it is merely a political show. Democratic oriented officials in the Chinese sense – those who view themselves as servants of the people who should respond to their needs, value public input, are willing to converse with the people in an equal manner, and are less concerned about risks in social stability – are more likely to engage the public in daily decision-making through various channels. Our study suggests that different practices of authoritarian deliberation may lead toward distinct prospects for democracy.

This paper examines the mechanisms of deliberation and conflict resolution in Chinese urban middle-class residential communities. Along with the rise of private home ownership and urban middle-class residential estates, disputes and conflicts have risen between the residents, resident self-elected organization (homeowner associations), real estate developer and property management companies, and the local government. Through the lens of deliberation in middle-class neighborhoods, this paper analyzes (1) how and to what extent deliberation is introduced and employed as an instrumental tool by the local government to achieve their goal of maintaining social stability. (2) In what ways and to what extent deliberation has served as part of governance strategies. And (3) whether and how the state and non-state actors interact with each other during this process to produce more democratic governance under the Party-state's authoritarian rule. This paper adopts a systemic approach to examine authoritarian deliberation as a neighborhood governance strategy. The findings suggest that (1) deliberation has become an instrumental tool for conflict resolution introduced by the local government to middle-class neighborhoods. Residents’ Committees, on behalf of the state, has become key coordinator and mediator during the deliberation process. (2) The systemic approach of authoritarian deliberation includes a mix of deliberative elements and other features of political culture, traditions, strategies, and institutions. The dynamic interactions between deliberation and authoritarianism, between deliberative and non-deliberative features, and between formal deliberative meetings and informal deliberative talks all contribute to a functional deliberative system.

This paper delves into the shifts in the foreign policy of Russia, considering what has determined Russia's grand strategy orientation after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It also attempts to offer an explanation of why Russia becomes discounted with the ‘constitutive and normative structure’, and how its foreign policy shifted toward the anti-status quo orientation, especially after the color revolutions. The main purpose of this paper is to explain the shift in Russia's foreign policy, from the search for the ‘greatpowerness’ status via different enhancement strategies in light of status quo in the ‘revolutionary decade’, to revisionism after the color revolutions in Commonwealth of Independent States region (2003–2005). To substantiate this, the study uses process-tracing and document analysis to show the changes in Russia's foreign policy. As demonstrated in this paper, power rendered is unable of directing or disinclined to direct its policies toward status quo, due to internal effects of perceived ‘status immobility’ resulting from the failure of several status enhancement strategies. Accordingly, the shift in Russia's foreign policy was a result of changing the Russian perception from status inconsistency to status immobility.

‘Rightful resistance’ has become a mainstream theoretical framework for understanding social protests in contemporary China. However, the middle class in Shanghai is more inclined to protect its rights through ‘loyal appealing’ than rightful resistance. The middle class has had to express its loyalty and its ‘voice’ at the same time to minimize its political risk. Rightful resistance and ‘loyal appealing’ differ in several respects. First, rightful resistance professes loyalty only to the central government, whereas loyal appealing professes loyalty to the local government. Second, rightful resistance considers the local government an object to confront, whereas loyal appealing considers it a potential ally. Finally, activists who engage in rightful resistance use central government policies as their weapon, whereas activists who engage in loyal appealing use the local government's political performance as a bargaining chip. However, the middle class has not completely relinquished its right to rightful resistance; instead, rightful resistance is a backup to ensure the effectiveness of loyal appealing.

The subject of this paper is the role of democratic deliberation as a policy instrument for district and local administrations in the urban village regeneration process. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between democratic deliberation and public policy making, and the theory of deliberative systems. Deliberation in the context of urban village regeneration is part of a complex, scalar, political-administrative system, with many actors whose activities are often not aligned. Although this configuration has authoritarian traits and operates largely without the protection of a strong and well-functioning rule of law, it is not all-sovereign. In fact, one of the most fascinating aspects of urban village deliberation is the way that reveals the limits of authoritarian rule in a modern national and international context. As we show, the Party encounters the same problems of technical, social, and institutional complexity, with the ensuing limits on vertical steering, as administrations in democratic countries. Using the case of Q village, we describe how hierarchical project management sits uneasily with village deliberation throughout the process. When officials attempt to curtail the legally mandated village deliberation process, they encounter stiff resistance and even a participation strike.

For the last few decades, the discipline of international relations has been littered with anarchy. Since Waltz's Theory of International Politics, it has been assumed that states are formally equal sovereign unitary actors operating in an anarchic world system and that their identities and interests are defined by the very existence of anarchy. This article shatters this conception. It offers a ‘hierarchical worldview’ in order to illustrate that the very concepts of state, sovereignty, and anarchy are discursive creations inherently tied to the practice of hierarchy. I use a case study of Japanese national identity to illustrate this practice. The narratives of Japan as an autonomous and sovereign state were inextricably linked to Japan's hierarchical relationship toward Asia and the West (pre-war) and the USA (post-war). Japan's sovereignty and autonomy were then formulated within the practice of hierarchy.

In this article, I describe an important aspect of the intellectual tradition of Japanese political theory while focusing on the Japanese scholar Fujita Shōzō’s political and scholarly activities. Not surprisingly, he has been chiefly considered a thinker or a historian of ideas, due to his being a pupil of Japan's brightest political scientist, Maruyama Masao. It must be stressed, however, that his scholarly works do not confine his academic scope to their ingredients; they are composed of theoretical requisites for the disciplinary activity of political theory, as can be seen particularly in his early contributions. He requires his theory to constitute integral aspects of practice, experience and perspective on the basis of his political concerns and practices in terms of detachment realism. From this perspective, I explore how Fujita changed his primary purpose from criticising Japan's ‘Tennō system’ (Tennōsei) to criticising its ‘high-speed growth’ (kōdo seichō) by highlighting the psychological transformation of his self-critical and self-reflective political thinking and acting according to his optimistic state of ‘hope’ (kibō) and his pessimistic state of ‘despair’ (zetsubō), especially in terms of his early work.

Authoritarian deliberation has been used widely to describe the specific form of deliberation developed in China. However, whether its practice will strengthen authoritarianism or lead to democratization remains unknown. In this study, we examine this question from the perspective of participants in public deliberation. Surveying the participants in participatory pricings held in Shanghai over the past 5 years, we find that participants’ perception of deliberative quality has a statistically significant negative impact on their level of political activism, while their level of empowerment has a moderating effect on this negative relationship. In this light, Chinese deliberative practices characterized by high-quality deliberation and low-level empowerment are likely to have a demobilization effect; thus, they reinforce the authoritarian rules.