Occupation reforms and postwar national consciousness in Japan

Examination of the relationship using “Japanese National Character Survey”

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to clarify how the information program provided by GHQ influenced Japanese perceptions or attitudes regarding the notion of democracy during the Occupation period. In this period, many political changes including constitutional reform were implemented to democratize Japan. Further, to make Japanese people understand democratic ideology, GHQ actively disseminated information by using radio, movies newspapers, magazines, and other media. How was such information program accepted by the Japanese people and to what extent did it affect them? This study tries to answer these questions with historical archives as well as quantitative data from the representative social survey. The results revealed that the information program had a certain impact on Japanese people’s perceptions or attitudes related to democratic thinking. Especially, newspapers had the greatest impact. On the other hand, the strengths of the effects of the information on the individuals were not uniform, but diverse, probably because of the respective prior ideology or thoughts. The institutional reform and social conditions may also have played an important role whether Japanese people’s perceptions or attitudes related to democratic thinking persisted or not.