Since the 1990s, a series of institutional policies named transitional justice（TJ）have been globally pervasive in the context of conflict resolution and post-conflict social reconstruction. TJ encompasses several options, most notably international “hybrid” tribunals, which embody the principle of local ownership, and truth commissions that are involved primarily in truth-seeking and statement-taking concerning various issues related to past conflicts. The former has been adopted in Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, and Liberia, and the latter has been used in countries such as South Africa, East Timor, Peru, and Argentina.

This article examines the social influence of TJ in general by focusing on an “official scenario” that channels the institutional design of TJ activities and illustrating desirable steps for bringing expected collective actions in this scenario, such as making public announcements to enlighten local residents mobilizing them to participate in symbolic events, sharing sympathetic spectacles among locals at authorized venues, and achieving national reconciliation and forging a new collective identity. The sociological and anthropological studies on TJs conducted in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have greatly considered local populationʼs reactions to such scenarios. By critically reviewing the resulting literature, this article offers insights into TJʼs latent function of catalyzing the possible recovery of local societies—not directly, through official implementation, but rather through local populationʼs divergence from the official program or supplementation of the TJ process through spontaneous action even when TJ fails to achieve official objectives.

Military sociology, which emerged as a sociological approach to civil-military relations, addresses the issue of how a society should control its military. It has developed in line with the changing military organization and its relationship to society, according to the perceived form of threat. It focuses on the themes; how to understand military service that became one of the professional occupations associated with the labor market after the abolition of conscription, and how to understand its changing professionalism and organizational characteristics in confronting the “New War” after the end of the Cold War. C. Moskos’ theory of the ‘Postmodern Military’ is a meaningful framework for comparative research on the military. Given that the military is regarded not as a group or place distinguished from the public, but as a place where the general norms of civil society intervene or should intervene, it becomes necessary to introduce ‘postmodernity’ into military sociology as a perspective focusing on the reflexive process of understanding the transformation of the modern military.

‘Postmodern Military’ theory is truly instructive in understanding Japan Self-Defense Forces（JSDF）. However, it is necessary to recognize the implications of a theoretical framework that focuses on the process of mutual observation between the military and the society, rather than merely focusing on the JSDF’s postmodern organizational characteristics. Possible future research may examine topics such as ‘postmodernity’ in historical and contemporary Japan, relationship between ‘memories of war’ and the JSDF, and JSDF’s activities for public relations as an interface with society.

Military sociology, which was established in the U.S.A. during the Cold War, examined contemporary themes such as armed forces, soldiers, and civil-military relations, with many empirical social research of military organization . Eventually, military sociology was internationalized in the West. However, in Japan, military sociology has not been imported. Instead, “the sociology of warfare” was established in the 2010s, which has accumulated interdisciplinary studies about the social influences and memories of total war（World War II）.

However, despite this contrast, some Japanese sociologists studied militaryrelated themes and referred to literature on the Western sociology of the military. This paper analyzes their studies to reveal the relationships between internationalized military sociology and Japanese sociology of the military.

As a result, Japanese sociologists who referred to military sociology during the Cold War specialized in the sociology of industry, culture, and education. First, an industrial sociologist reviewed and arranged the theory of the military profession and informal groups. Second, a cultural sociologist developed the original theory of the military cultures of total war , including outside of military organizations, and conducted empirical research on Japanese veteransʼ groups and their writings. Third, educational sociologists conducted empirical research on the social backgrounds of military elites in pre-war Japan as compared with the West. Their achievements were unique from the point of view of arranging theories of military sociology and finding an alternative research object, rather than the strict acceptance of the framework of Western military sociology.

This article examines the militarization of Japanese local communities during the period of high economic growth（the late 1950s-1960s）with particular focus on Komatsu City, Ishikawa Prefecture. In Komatsu City, the airfield was first developed by the Japanese imperial navy during wartime. The article first demonstrates in what way the cityʼs development has been closely associated with the war economy and industry. After WWII, the political and business leaders made much effort to invite the air-SDF to set up a new airbase in Komatsu City. However, a great number of people opposed the local governmentʼs plan.

Nonetheless, the Komatsu National Defense Exhibition, which was held in 1962 to celebrate the opening of the air-SDF base, eventually drew an audience of over 500,000. The exhibition demonstrated a new local identity by highlighting the advanced technologies of air forces. Additionally, it reinterpreted weaponry in terms of consumer culture. In other words, the SDFʼs weapons, vehicles, and firearms were demonstrated in terms of “advanced technologies” rather than killing machines. This article examines how the exhibition successfully mobilized people to accept the air SDF base through the articulation of discourses on military, local development, and consumerism during the time of high economic growth.

In post-war Japan, there was a rise in nationalistic sentiments among the Japanese to protest nuclear weapons as “the only nation to be bombed with atomic weapons.” This hibaku（nuclear-bombed）nationalism, was formed by both the Japanese people and the national government, dominated by the Liberal Democratic Party（LDP）. This article examines the political mechanism by which the Japanese government developed hibaku nationalism by examining the LPD's measures regarding nuclear weapons and the victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. First, this article explores the LDP's reactions to a nationwide movement to ban nuclear weapons from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s. The LDP agreed that Japanese people should call for the abolition of nuclear weapons unless they raised “domestic political issues,” such as the Japan-U. S. Security Arrangement. Second, the article explains the governmental policy for the victims of the atomic bombings, focusing on a law-making process under the coalition government of the LDP, the Socialist Party of Japan（SPJ）, and the New Party Sakigake in 1994. The LDP and the national government provided special aid for the survivors of the bombing as victims of nuclear weapons, but denied the wartime responsibility of the government to avoid its spillover effects: compensation for other war victims inside and outside Japan and its impact on Japanese defense policy. In conclusion, this article points out that the hibaku nationalism produced by the LDP tried to keep its distance from the Japanese military, security, and foreign policy. It also suggests that the LDP formed nationalism through its conflict with social movements and other political parties, such as the SPJ.

This paper clarifies the role of journalists in war testimony interviews by bridging journalism theory and dialogical constructionism, one of the main theories in life story studies. Many life story studies and life history studies have attempted to analyze the listenerʼs positions and roles in the interview process. However, little research has focused on journalists, some of the most important listeners and authors of war testimonies.

In journalism, the importance of objectivism is often emphasized. Some critics of objectivism have suggested the idea of journalists as the subject. This idea and dialogical constructionism can be theoretically connected. Moreover, war survivors discuss harsh experiences, and their stories vary depending on journalists' attitudes and the framing of questions. From this perspective, dialogical constructionism is effective in analyzing the process of creating news about war testimony.

More than 1300 testimonies are recorded in the NHK War Testimony Archives. Generally, media content, such as news articles and TV documentaries, display only the results of interviews, but the NHK War Testimony Archives preserves videos of the interview process. This advanced archive contains groundbreaking media content and reveals a way to analyze journalistic interviews from the perspective of dialogical constructionism.

This article focuses on the testimonies of Tadahiro Murakami and Lee Kwan Ho and analyzes them using dialogical constructionism. By analyzing the testimonies of two people in the NHK War Testimony Archives, this article clarifies the multiple layers of narrative and the language format that defines the interview process. In addition, this article argues that as these archives are developed, it is necessary to compile sociological analyses that take journalistic interviews into account.

Group threat theory explains that xenophobia springs from the perception that immigrants threaten natives. Accordingly, an increase in the unemployment rate is expected to strengthen xenophobia among native residents, as this increase in unemployment stimulates an awareness of the competitive relationship between immigrants and host residents for job opportunities.

Previous studies have examined the association between the unemployment rate and xenophobia in Japan, and none supported the hypothesis based on the group threat theory. However, previous studies are insufficient because they analyzed cross-sectional data and did not control for the influence of regional factors beyond the unemployment rate.

This study analyzed data from the International Social Survey in 1995, 2003, and 2013 to control for time-invariant regional effects. The results revealed that when the unemployment rate increases, people more strongly believe that immigrants threaten the job opportunities of natives. However, the unemployment rate and perceived job threat did not significantly affect regional degrees of xenophobia. Conversely, the results revealed that the regional rise in xenophobia in the early 2000s was due to the strengthening of the stereotype that foreigners increase the crime rate. Finally, the results and limitations of this study are discussed.

This study aims to clarify the facts of Hiraku Toyamaʼs criticism of meritocracy. Meritocracy, whose aims are the distribution of educational opportunities and resources according to the skills of individuals, emerged in the context of educational policies from various reports from the 1960s. Critical discourse on meritocracy from a number of educators spread at that time.

This study considered the views of the mathematician Hiraku Toyama and clarified the facts in his criticism of meritocracy in order to shed light on the existence of various phases and pluralities of meritocracy criticism that have been neglected to date based on the circumstances of the previous studies mentioned above. The considerations in this study suggest that in Toyamaʼs meritocracy criticism, i）criticism is focused on the fallacy of numerical principles in education measurement and achievement tests, and ii）statements are made regarding the deprivation of educational opportunities among disabled students and students who perform poorly, who are driven to the bottom of the hierarchy due to the misapplication of education measurement and achievement tests. In addition, iii） the victims of meritocracy and the mentality of the people he considers disabled and students who perform poorly are addressed, and how the deprivation of self-esteem and motivation impacts the paths of said people are indicated. Furthermore, in comparison with the views of the educator Teruhisa Horio, the intention to pursue teacher damage was clarified, and the findings of this study clarified the existence of discourses with facts that go beyond the scope of previous studies on meritocracy criticism in port-war Japan.

This study analyzes the publication of works during the National Congress of Culture and describes the differences between the acceptances of several social classes in those works.

Post-war Japanese cultural movements during the 1950s had two features: creating cultural works and presenting them. Papers regarding the presentation of these works highlight how people identified with them. However, the participants were from multiple social classes, and existing studies have not explored the differences or contradictions between them.

Bourdieu argues that cultural works are accepted as “suitable” for a specific social class due to their stake in the work and its cultural capital. This study refers to Bourdieuʼs theories to analyze the presentation of the works and explore the differences between peopleʼs impressions of and stake in the works.

The National Congress of Culture was held by the National Congress of Culture during the late 1950s as an annual meeting and consisted of the presentation of movies and dramas made by the working classes. These presentations were understood as an extension of labor and as an everyday activity. Many people mentioned two specific works: Motomeru-Hito and Kasya-no-Uta. Motomeru-Hito was a drama made by Osaka prefecture laborers, and Kasya-no-Uta was a chant by Japan National Railway laborers.

However, there was no mass identification with these works, and disagreement between students, members of cultural movements, and laborers emerged. These differences reflected their different stakes in the student, cultural, and labor movements. Since there were no adequate explanations or discussions of these works, their ideas, and concepts, the differences in peopleʼs cultural capital were not offset, and participants experienced themselves to be outside the everyday movements. People could not understand the performerʼs emotions or the differences between their positions in cultural movements. Therefore, differences in social class arose within cultural works, which limited the development of postwar cultural movements.