This paper examines the underlying causes of conflicts between legal professionals and art professionals in legal settings. Previous studies have schematized such conflicts using abstract concepts such as habitus and power, but concrete mechanisms have yet to be elucidated. In this study, analysis of art professionals’ testimonies and legal professionals’ arguments in an obscenity trial in Japan revealed that a conflict arose because the legal professionals re-described the art professionals’ testimonies by using legal expertise. Thus, analyzing art professionals’ methods of constructing arguments and legal professionals’ methods of re-describing those arguments may reveal important details of how such conflicts can arise in the legal setting.

This paper reveals two specializations of legal scholars engaged in crime victims support in Japan by examining how their specializations are formed through their practice of restorative justice, and the dilemmas in their specializations. The first specialization, which is based on restorative practices, held dilemma in both theory and practice. The second specialization was found in the institutionalization of criminal justice. This specialization held dilemma in both a moderate degree of institutionalization and a strong degree of institutionalization. Both of these specializations were formed through multiple commitment of legal scholars to restorative justice with the above two dilemmas.

This paper examines how the editorial focus of the Japanese gay magazine Badi has shifted over time and how the magazine has shaped the identity of gay men in Japan. Badi is the most popular magazine for gay men in Japan today. Its creation in 1993 coincided with a period of marked change in Japanese society regarding views toward homosexuality as well as with several watershed events such as in 1991 when homophobia was first addressed in a Japanese court and in 1994 when the first pride parade was held in Tokyo. By examining Badi as part of the Japanese gay liberation movement of the 1990s, and dividing the magazine’s editorial run into four distinct periods, we show that although the editors shaped the new identity and lifestyle, they were bolstered by masculinity.

This study examines the relationship between reflexivity in functional systems and science as a functional system from the viewpoint of functional differentiation. We discuss the internal structure of functional systems and the complicated relationship with reference to the hypercycle theory of the German legal scholar and sociologist Gunther Teubner. The findings of the present study provide insights useful for analysis of the internal structures of functional systems, and the construction of theories explaining how scientific disciplines formed in the context of social theory.

In Britain in the first half of the 2010s, support for the UK Independence Party (UKIP), an anti-EU immigration party, dramatically increased. Although a number of studies have been done to explain the party’s rise, less attention has been paid to the development of anti-EU immigration discourse among the British public. This article explains the shift from an inclusive discourse in the 2000s to an exclusive one in the 2010s by focusing on the welfare rights of EU immigrants and the compatibility of these rights with the contemporary workfare-oriented welfare state.

This paper explores the interconnection between war and tourism, focusing on the “Rest and Recuperation (R&R)” program of the U.S. Army during the Korean War (1950–1953). The R&R program was a system that provided military personnel with a five-day period of leave to Japan for every six or seven months of frontline service. First, I argue that the idea of limited wartime service originated from scientific research on war neurosis (or combat fatigue) and the U.S. Army’s recreational services called “Special Services” during the Second World War. Second, I analyze how the Japanese tourist industry and GHQ/SCAP worked together to provide recreational services for U.S. armed forces stationed in Japan and other Asian countries. Finally, I consider the possibility that the R&R program had negative effects on morale, discipline and combat efficiency.

In this paper, I re-evaluate the theoretical implications of social constructivism, which has persisted as the most influential movement in science studies for more than 30 years. Social constructivism has been perceived as being antirealist, a school of thought that denies the reality of the world. Although antirealism has been criticized by scientific realists, who believe that the sciences can define reality whereas religion and pseudo-sciences cannot, the dichotomy of realism and antirealism that philosophers of science often impose is problematic because, in a philosophical sense, social constructivism is neither realism nor antirealism. In response, in this paper I introduce the term anti-antirealism to clarify theoretical claims that the dichotomy of realism and antirealism have blurred.

This article reconsiders the sociological significance of sociologist Howard S. Becker’s liberalist stance. In 1966, Becker presented a lecture entitled “Whose side are we on?” in which he discussed his support for liberalism. However, his stance has been strongly criticized and called “underdog sociology” by Alvin Gouldner and others. Although, these criticisms have insisted that sociologists should be either neutral or a reflection of ourselves, Becker paid attention to the construction of the self as a sociologist within a social organization. Interpreting his ideas in this way provides a perspective from which we can empirically analyze political debates.