Abstract
The aim of this paper is to analyze the Japanese social relation in contrast to the Western social relation. We focus on the conflict-solving procedure as the decision-making procedure, and set a neutral analysis framework. This framework has two axes about the character of the decision-making procedure : <participant/outsider> and <S (sachlich) order-recovering/ P (personlich) order-recovering>. These two axes differentiate four types of the decisionmaking procedure : <participant-S order>, <outsider-S order>, <participant-P order> and <outsider-P order>. With these types we show that the Japanese conflict-solving procedure is considered the type <participant-P order>, and the Western one the type <outsider-S order>. We also show historically how the difference between these two procedures came along. Both of these two procedures originated in the societies whose main procedures are considered the type <participant-S order>.
In making these four types we critically followed the works of Takeyoshi Kawashima, the important predecessor in this field, especially those which are related to the Japanese ideas about law and conflict. Our model makes clear the phases of the Japanese conflict-solving procedure which Kawashima saw. He failed to see the regularity in the Japanese procedure, because his concept of law and conflict was based on the type <outsider-S order>. But he acquired the unique structure in the Japanese procedure : the apparently autonomous conflictsolving procedure is sustained by the power from outside.
