2012 Volume 63 Issue 3 Pages 424-438
The idea for Suzuki Eitaro's (1894-1966) “natural village,” which he developed in his work Principles of the Japanese Rural Sociology (1940) , came from Takata Yasuma's (1883-1972) concept of “total society,” originating from a theoretical combination of individual interactions maintaining consistency with the pluralistic concept of State. However, since Suzuki engaged in the “sociology of national society” in his later years, he criticized Takata's theory of “total society” and his pluralistic concept of State. Suzuki insisted instead that state governance created social unity. With this theory, Suzuki reviewed his concept of regional society from the perspective of power, maintaining that state governance is essential for the occurrence of regional society, and that administrative groups qualitatively transform into natural groups. This dynamic perspective from his later years suggests that the dichotomy of “nature” and “administration,” and the one-sided insistence on the former, should be reviewed. Suzuki's perspective also provides the theoretical basis for the institutionalization of community, guaranteeing autonomy for the local community. From this perspective, we should develop the “sociology of local autonomy” through international comparisons.
