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Nowhere was this transformation more apparent than in the area of governance. The U.S. Occupation brought democratization to Japan, again from above. Although it came by decree and not by popular choice, democracy brought political stability. Japan today is a parliamentary democracy, run by a prime minister and an elected Diet, with an Upper and a Lower House much like in the United Kingdom. But unlike the United Kingdom, one large party has held office for most of the period: the Liberal Democratic Party has held power in Japan since 1955, virtually uninterrupted. With the LDP's dominance, Japan's conservative elite bureaucracy generated most of the legislative initiatives. As the Emperor is still nominally the head of state as a constitutional monarch, some have also dubbed governance in Japan as "Imperial democracy."
International security remained a challenge for Japan throughout the Cold War. Japan renounced the rights to wage war and create a military in its postwar Constitution's Article 9. But during the Cold War, military "Self-Defense Forces" were created nonetheless. Japan's international security is founded on U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, which also has the effect of delaying postwar reconciliation with its East Asian neighbors who were the Communist block-the Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, and North Korea. The United States still maintains military bases in Japan, especially Okinawa, as part of the Security Treaty. Although strong economic ties have developed with China and South Korea, political relations are still strained over war memory. Today, both Japan's defense budget and international aid budget are among the highest in the world.
Citizens' identity was much influenced by the pragmatic, affluent, and consumerist nature of a postwar Japanese society oriented toward science, rationalism, and efficiency. (The U.S. Occupation banned the cult of the Emperor and state Shintoism; and there are no longer national religious holidays in Japan). However, this secularism is nevertheless built on past Shinto and Buddhist spiritual practices. Japan is aesthetically and morally rooted in Buddhism. It is also indebted to Confucianism for its knowledge systems, ethics and hierarchy, and to Shintoism for its sense of moral boundaries (purity). Most surveys show that people tend to be ambiguous about their religiosity and reveal both low religious beliefs and high spirituality simultaneously. Given that there has been no historical tradition of a monotheistic God with absolute supernatural authority as in Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions, it is not surprising that a search for ontological security in this world is important. Cultural values are learned more at home and at school, less in temples and shrines.
(D) The Global Age of Uncertainty, Economic Stagnation, and Refocusing Social Goals (1989)
The end of "postwar" for Japan began with the death of the Shōwa Emperor in 1989, which was a symbolic transition for the nation. In the 1990s, Japan found itself in this transition, as the Cold War ended and as economic and cultural globalization intensified. Social institutions and economic organizations that served to Japan's advantage during the postwar decades began to lose their relevance. The paternalistic and protectionist social, economic, and political institutions were now rapidly growing out of synch with the new global realities that made new demands. In concrete terms, the economic bubble burst in 1989-1991 when the overheated economy turned downward. The ripple effects were enormous: a gradual breakdown of life-long employment, which was the pillar of Japan's job security; a gradual shift from a seniority-based reward system to one based more on merit, etc. Discontent grew in the middle class and among the younger generation in this climate of uncertainty. There was no longer any social guarantee that life was always going to get better if only one worked hard, long, and diligently.
In the rapidly globalizing world, Japan's task has been to remake its social institutions and transform itself from a society that prizes planning and discipline to one that prizes flexibility and uncertainty. In effect, this was tantamount to a conscious re-making of its hybrid identity: it meant undoing a cultural preference for order, hierarchy, and certainty. It meant undoing a cultural preference for the safety of isolation and protection that are no longer tenable in the increasingly borderless world. It meant embracing improvisations, uncertainties, and multiethnic immigration. It meant creating a genuinely multiethnic society with 5 million minority residents (4% of the population) and millions of foreign workers. Although the myth of Japanese homogeneity has long been undone, a sense of threat about growing hybridization continues nevertheless. In more ways than one, Japan is already irrevocably swept in the tide of international economy and global culture. It already has, for example, the largest number of McDonalds (over 3,300 outlets) outside the United States.
The search for a new identity in Japan today involves selecting a new vision for society in the post-economic growth era. Japan has now attained affluence and a certain degree of social stability, so what should be its new goal? To continue to work as hard, or to continue to earn as much foreign currency and incur as much trade imbalance as in the past? At the core, the Japanese must answer fundamentally existential questions: "Who are we, and who do we want to be in the future? What do we value, and what moral principles do we choose?" These choices will no long come along from top-down as they did in the past, but must be chosen by individuals. As social discontent for Japan's social rigidity continues to grow-as we witness in the lowering birth rates-Japan seems as yet unwilling to embrace wholesale change. Changes are likely to come slowly and gradually. Part of the difficulty for Japanese identity is the fact that it has incorporated so much of the West in its hybrid identity, yet racial barriers never disappear, and the Japanese will never become "Western" as such. The new cultural identity is nevertheless likely to incorporate growing individualism and maturity tempered with a deep-seated desire for wealth distribution and equity.
Akiko Hashimoto
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