P ublished just as Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) stumbled into the election that drove i... more P ublished just as Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) stumbled into the election that drove it from power decisively for the first time since the party was created in 1955, Japan’s Open Future: An Agenda for Global Citizenship by John Haffner, Tomas Casas i Klett, and Jean-Pierre Lehmann was timed perfectly. These three Westerners stepped in with a blueprint for a more open and liberal Japan, based on their intimate familiarity with the country, just as the Japanese people chose the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)—a party that is, if not uniformly progressive, at least more progressive than the LDP. The decay in Japan’s social, economic, and political institutions, the book argues, is well advanced. Having inherited institutions that enabled Japan to pursue and “catch up” with the West economically not once but twice, Japan’s leaders have struggled to adapt to a new, more global age: “Japan’s policymakers stubbornly hold to the untenable dogma of mercantilism— the idea that a nation’s prosperity depends on the foreign trade surpluses it generates, where exports and outward investments are good, imports impoverish and inward foreign investments are bad” (p. 85). In other words, Japan’s foreign economic policy is unchanged from the Meiji period. Married to mercantilism is an outmoded idea of the Japanese nation-state, which the authors argue rests on a constructed, sanitized history that asserts the homogeneity of the Japanese nation and often downplays or excises from official retellings the darker moments of Japan’s past (although the authors acknowledge both Japan’s official apologies and China’s manipulation of the history issue for domestic reasons). The result has been that Japan’s leaders not only have insulated the economy through mercantilist practices but also have isolated the Japanese people from international connections. The neo-nationalist narrative has made
La nette victoire du Parti democrate du Japon, en 2009, laissait augurer de changements fondament... more La nette victoire du Parti democrate du Japon, en 2009, laissait augurer de changements fondamentaux apres une longue domination du Parti liberal-democrate. Fin 2010, la deception est generale. Le PDJ a echoue a modifier la logique de gouvernement, et en particulier les complexes liaisons entre le Cabinet, l’administration, et le parti majoritaire. Le manque de vision politique et l’indecision des Premiers ministres successifs, ainsi que le poids de la crise economique, les ont condamnes a l’echec. politique etrangere
After nearly fifty-five years in power, there is a significant probability that Japan’s Liberal D... more After nearly fifty-five years in power, there is a significant probability that Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will be unseated as the largest party in Japan’s House of Representatives and replaced in government by the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). With less than three weeks until the general election, the LDP trails by a substantial margin in public opinion polls: a recent Yomiuri Shimbun poll showed that the DPJ enjoys considerable support in both single-member districts and regional proportional representation blocks, while recent Sankei/FNN poll found respondents overwhelmingly concerned with issues seen to favor the DPJ, namely social security and economic countermeasures to overcome the recession.
The marked victory of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in 2009 sparked hopes of fundamental ch... more The marked victory of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in 2009 sparked hopes of fundamental changes after a long domination by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). In late 2010 the atmosphere was that of collective disappointment. The DPJ has failed to change the government
Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency was marked by innovative uses of online technolog... more Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency was marked by innovative uses of online technology to communicate with supporters, enable supporters to cooperate with each other, and, most important, set new fundraising records, with much of the campaign's war chest coming ...
P ublished just as Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) stumbled into the election that drove i... more P ublished just as Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) stumbled into the election that drove it from power decisively for the first time since the party was created in 1955, Japan’s Open Future: An Agenda for Global Citizenship by John Haffner, Tomas Casas i Klett, and Jean-Pierre Lehmann was timed perfectly. These three Westerners stepped in with a blueprint for a more open and liberal Japan, based on their intimate familiarity with the country, just as the Japanese people chose the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)—a party that is, if not uniformly progressive, at least more progressive than the LDP. The decay in Japan’s social, economic, and political institutions, the book argues, is well advanced. Having inherited institutions that enabled Japan to pursue and “catch up” with the West economically not once but twice, Japan’s leaders have struggled to adapt to a new, more global age: “Japan’s policymakers stubbornly hold to the untenable dogma of mercantilism— the idea that a nation’s prosperity depends on the foreign trade surpluses it generates, where exports and outward investments are good, imports impoverish and inward foreign investments are bad” (p. 85). In other words, Japan’s foreign economic policy is unchanged from the Meiji period. Married to mercantilism is an outmoded idea of the Japanese nation-state, which the authors argue rests on a constructed, sanitized history that asserts the homogeneity of the Japanese nation and often downplays or excises from official retellings the darker moments of Japan’s past (although the authors acknowledge both Japan’s official apologies and China’s manipulation of the history issue for domestic reasons). The result has been that Japan’s leaders not only have insulated the economy through mercantilist practices but also have isolated the Japanese people from international connections. The neo-nationalist narrative has made
La nette victoire du Parti democrate du Japon, en 2009, laissait augurer de changements fondament... more La nette victoire du Parti democrate du Japon, en 2009, laissait augurer de changements fondamentaux apres une longue domination du Parti liberal-democrate. Fin 2010, la deception est generale. Le PDJ a echoue a modifier la logique de gouvernement, et en particulier les complexes liaisons entre le Cabinet, l’administration, et le parti majoritaire. Le manque de vision politique et l’indecision des Premiers ministres successifs, ainsi que le poids de la crise economique, les ont condamnes a l’echec. politique etrangere
After nearly fifty-five years in power, there is a significant probability that Japan’s Liberal D... more After nearly fifty-five years in power, there is a significant probability that Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will be unseated as the largest party in Japan’s House of Representatives and replaced in government by the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). With less than three weeks until the general election, the LDP trails by a substantial margin in public opinion polls: a recent Yomiuri Shimbun poll showed that the DPJ enjoys considerable support in both single-member districts and regional proportional representation blocks, while recent Sankei/FNN poll found respondents overwhelmingly concerned with issues seen to favor the DPJ, namely social security and economic countermeasures to overcome the recession.
The marked victory of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in 2009 sparked hopes of fundamental ch... more The marked victory of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in 2009 sparked hopes of fundamental changes after a long domination by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). In late 2010 the atmosphere was that of collective disappointment. The DPJ has failed to change the government
Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency was marked by innovative uses of online technolog... more Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency was marked by innovative uses of online technology to communicate with supporters, enable supporters to cooperate with each other, and, most important, set new fundraising records, with much of the campaign's war chest coming ...
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Papers by Tobias Harris