This message is to announce the following talk:
"Senzen nihon no minshuka to minshusei"
(Meiji and Taisho-era Democratization and the Democratic System)

13 June 1995 15.00-17.00

Organizer:

Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo.

"20th Century System" interdisciplinary research project seminar.

Speaker:

Professor BANNO Junji, Director, Institute of Social Science.

Professor Banno's talk will focus on the Meiji and Taisho era movements for democratization and their arguments. In addition, the talk will examine possible areas of correspondence between contemporary political reform movements and those of these earlier periods. One of the similarities involves the advocacy of a 2-party system by Fukuzawa Yukichi and Yoshino Sakuzo in Meiji and Taisho-era Japan. Yoshino Sakuzo, for example, supported the Meiji oligarchs' launch of the Doushikai (which later became the Kenseikai). Even though Yoshino was vilified by his reformist colleagues for lending support to the conservatives, he believed the oligarchs' party would help bring about a 2-party system. In the currect era, Sasaki Takeshi has supported Ozawa Ichirou's effort to introduce a 2-party system in Japan, and Sasaki himself has been politically ostracized in the same way as his predecessor. Hence there would seem to be a parallel between current politics and the politics of an earlier era.

****Note that Professor Banno is author of the introductory chapter in Vol. 3 of _Yoshino Sakuzo Senshuu_[Selected Writings of Yoshino Sakuzo], which focuses on the 1910s. The chapter is titled "Tennosei to Kyousanshugi ni Koushite" [In Opposition to the Emperor System and Communism]. The volume will be published in July of 1995 by Iwanami Shoten.

Venue:

Institute of Social Science, Hongo Campus, University of Tokyo.

Language:

Japanese.

Contact:

TSUCHIDA Tomoko, Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo.

tsuchida[atx]iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Fax 03-3816-6864