Through a Cabinet decision taken on July 1, 2014, the Abe administration reinterpreted Article 9 of Japanʼs 1946 Constitution. The new interpretation allows Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense, which is something that postwar governments over the past 60 years have construed as prohibiting. This is not to say that the traditional interpretation was constitutional, because Article 9 prohibits not only use of armed forces for collective defense but also for individual self-defense. A 2014Cabinet decision violated the rule of law under the constitution even more flagrantly.

The pacifism of the Constitution is prescribed in both Article 9 and the Preamble. Article 9 renounces all forms of war, prohibits the maintenance of any significant military capability, and denies Japan the right of belligerency. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that there are still two reasons for the pacifism of Japanese constitution.

One is that the Article 9 provides for the victims of historical Japanese aggression and colonial rule by preventing Japan from venturing out to disturb international peace again. Post- war Japanese governments, however, have not yet taken fully responsibility for this past. For example, Japanese politicians still visit Yasukuni Shurine.

The other reason is that Article 9, together with the Preamble, which states, “We recognize that all peoples of the world have the right to live in peace, free from fear and want.” says that there are no “just wars” from the peopleʼs point of view. Such an idea was incorporated into the Constitution because of the “horrors of war” ( Preamble) the Japanese people themselves experienced as both aggressors and victims during World War II. The Article 9 has been rated highly among grass-roots movements for peace around the world, e.g. The 1999 Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century to Abolish War.

This paper aims to reconsider the significance of the intellectual careers, togetherwith some inherent questions left unresolved, of the three thinkers who played leading roles in the formation of anti-nuclear and pacifist thought, by bringing into relief, from multiple perspectives, the intersections of their visions particularly regarding nuclear issues.

Raichō Hiratsuka, known as a pioneering feminist thinker who inaugurated in 1911 Seitō, the first journal by and for women, was already approaching 60 years old in 1945, but she embraced with enthusiasm the new constitution and led women’s peace movements till she died in 1971. During the war, however, her motherhood-based vision was all but swept away by nationalist rhetoric in the name of women as “national beings,” and she remained silent about these stumbling years.

It was Masao Maruyama, Political thinker, who presented a thorough-going analysis of Japanese totalitarianism immediately; he became famous almost overnight by in his 1946 article, “Logic and Psychology of Utra-Nationalism.” Although many evaluations and critiques have been presented regarding his works, there is one problem Maruyama himself confessed as a most serious omission in his thought; he did not engage with the nuclear question, although he was a hibakusha. Besides some psychological reasons, we suggest his pluralistic pragmatism, which worked well in criticizing totalitarianism, as responsible for such failure.

Hiroshima-based philosopher Ichirō Moritaki had to go through a total soulsearching after undergoing the A-bombing, which deprived him of his right eye. Realizing the need to overcome the “civilization of power,” he began advocating the “civilization of beneficence” and became a committed leader of the antinuclear campaign. However, even for him it took three decades to come to announce “the absolute negation of the nuclear” including power generation. Why? He confessed to having been under a spell of the words of “peaceful use.” But eventually he broke free of it as he became convinced of the “no threshold theory for radiation risk.”

Peace movements in postwar Japan appeared as early as around 1950 under growing American-Soviet confrontations. Though the newly enacted peace constitution brought favorable conditions for peace movements, Japan’s conservative ruling class had little enthusiasm for postwar democracy while surrendering to US demand for military bases and Japan’s rearmament. Thus, postwar Japanese peace movements have taken it upon themselves to pursue peace and democracy. This double task has often thrown peace movements into political difficulties in maintaining their coherence and autonomy.

Successful peace movements in 1950s like anti-US base struggles in Uchinada and Sunagawa and the nationwide campaign against atomic and hydrogen bombs had in common a coherent sense of purpose among the participants. Meanwhile, the struggle against the revision of the Japan-US Security Treaty in 1960 turned the largest political protest ever, and therefore, although its goal was frustrated, the government was thereafter obliged to take into consideration Japanese people’s strong pacifist sentiment. Yet, peace groups in the end fell apart with bitter antagonism among them. They had never agreed upon what security arrangement was desirable and possible in place of the proposed revision of the treaty.

The low-key defense policy after 1960 and the proliferating peace culture through media, education and municipalities gave birth to the de facto national identity of a ‘peace state.’ However, this ‘peace state’ has left two serious problems unresolved. While the ‘peace state’ relies on a large US military presence, Japan has not yet achieved the historical reconciliation with neighboring nations. Second, a curious coexistence between the pacifist constitution and the security pact has been possible only through the concentration of major US military bases in Okinawa. Japan’s ‘peace state’ has actually been an isolated one country pacifism with an unjust security regime. Peace movements have not yet effectively come to grips with these problems

This paper aims to examine negative effects given to women in Japan by the Japanese governmentʼs recent policy of promotion of women’s active participation, and by the draft of the revision of constitutional law made by the major ruling party Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Considered these effects, it will show the forthcoming agenda for the Japanese feminist movement to tackle with.

The Abe administration has come to express “Promotion of Womenʼs Active Participation” as a growth strategy in order to revive Japanese economy since April 2013, and has showed some concrete plans for its actual practice. In this strategy, building a “Society where All Women Shine” was held up as one of the most crucial tasks for the administration.

The Abe administration has come to express “Promotion of Womenʼs Active Participation” as a growth strategy in order to revive Japanese economy since April 2013, and has showed some concrete plans for its actual practice. In this strategy, building a “Society where All Women Shine” was held up as one of the most crucial tasks for the administration.

The above-mentioned movements seem contrary to each other. However, if we analyse them simultaneously from a perspective of the national policies on economy and security, a common intention behind them becomes apparent. It means the Abe administration has the intention to utilise women, especially highly educated women, for the economic and military revival of Japan. In this sense, familsm becomes an effective tool to mobilise nationals to join forces with these policies. How much can the Japanese feminist movement challenge this intention? It stands at the crossroads now.

This article aims to reveal how the movements to record air raids in Fukuoka began in 1970s, expanded in 1980s, and have continued until now. Fukuoka, which has the large industrial cities and the experience of the air raids and of the fortification for the Korean War, had invented the various peace movements by the labor union cultural circles in the context of anti-base movement since 1950s. In 1970s, these peace circles organized the Society to Record Air Raids in Kiakyushu-shi, Omuta-shi, and Fukuoka-shi on their own initiative, and began to collect the notes about the experiences of the air raids in Fukuoka and the sources of US Strategic Bombing Surveys. In 1980s, The Teacherʼs Union in Fukuoka, women’s groups, and Local Union and Junior Chamber in Amagi-Asakura area also proceeded to undertake the movements to record air raids.

After the latter half of the 1980s, there appeared various measures of the movements to record air raids. For example, the exhibition about air raids was held on Fukuoka-shi in 1985. Moreover, the movement for erection of the peace monument arose among the citizens of Omta city, involving the city assembly in 1988. In recent years, the memorizing of the achievements of the activists who have taken part in the movement to record air raids is proceeding.

These circumstances show that the movements to record air raids in Fukuoka have four features as follows. Firstly, “free agency” of the residents in each town led the movements sustainable. Secondly, cooperation with each civil group was based on “communality”. Thirdly, the participants of the movements shared “actuality”, their attitude to understand the Vietnam War or the environmental problems as their own problems. Lastly, the civil movements were “influential” in public policies by local government.

The U.S. military base is under construction in Ukawa area in Kyotango city, Kyoto prefecture. In February 2013, the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the U.S. President Barack Obama agreed to install an X-band radar in Ukawa area in order to strengthen missile defense system. After this announcement, the plan was unveiled that both governments planed not only installation of the military radar but also constructing new military base there. Residents of Kyoto prefecture including community members of Ukawa area raised many questions and showed their fear such as accidents and incidents by the U.S. soldiers, impact of an electromagnetic wave from the radar, and destruction of beautiful environment and scenery. However, after the negotiation between Japanese government and local governments, in September 2013, a governor of Kyoto prefecture and a mayor of Kyotango city officially announced to accept this plan. Then, construction work started in May of 2014. the U.S. military officially began to be stationed in Kyotango city from October 2014consisted of about 20 soldiers and 70 security workers and technical experts dispatched by private companies to support the military.

This article aims to analyze the dynamic process of militarization in Ukawa area. According to an important work of Cynthia Enloe, militarization is operated through various actions and decisions including appropriation of concepts, nonmilitary activities, and relationship among people. The militarization of Ukawa area was operated (1) prioritizing and strengthening the framework of national security, (2) practices to limit persons/subjects involved in the problem and weaken the autonomy of the local community, (3) changing community space under the control of military power. Therefore, the militarization of Ukawa area works through not only physical construction of military base but also various nonmilitary and non-political phenomenon.

Through a Cabinet decision taken on July 1, 2014, the Abe administration reinterpreted Article 9 of Japanʼs 1946 Constitution. The new interpretation allows Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense, which is something that postwar governments over the past 60 years have construed as prohibiting. This is not to say that the traditional interpretation was constitutional, because Article 9 prohibits not only use of armed forces for collective defense but also for individual self-defense. A 2014Cabinet decision violated the rule of law under the constitution even more flagrantly.

The pacifism of the Constitution is prescribed in both Article 9 and the Preamble. Article 9 renounces all forms of war, prohibits the maintenance of any significant military capability, and denies Japan the right of belligerency. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that there are still two reasons for the pacifism of Japanese constitution.

One is that the Article 9 provides for the victims of historical Japanese aggression and colonial rule by preventing Japan from venturing out to disturb international peace again. Post- war Japanese governments, however, have not yet taken fully responsibility for this past. For example, Japanese politicians still visit Yasukuni Shurine.

The other reason is that Article 9, together with the Preamble, which states, “We recognize that all peoples of the world have the right to live in peace, free from fear and want.” says that there are no “just wars” from the peopleʼs point of view. Such an idea was incorporated into the Constitution because of the “horrors of war” ( Preamble) the Japanese people themselves experienced as both aggressors and victims during World War II. The Article 9 has been rated highly among grass-roots movements for peace around the world, e.g. The 1999 Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century to Abolish War.

This paper aims to reconsider the significance of the intellectual careers, togetherwith some inherent questions left unresolved, of the three thinkers who played leading roles in the formation of anti-nuclear and pacifist thought, by bringing into relief, from multiple perspectives, the intersections of their visions particularly regarding nuclear issues.

Raichō Hiratsuka, known as a pioneering feminist thinker who inaugurated in 1911 Seitō, the first journal by and for women, was already approaching 60 years old in 1945, but she embraced with enthusiasm the new constitution and led women’s peace movements till she died in 1971. During the war, however, her motherhood-based vision was all but swept away by nationalist rhetoric in the name of women as “national beings,” and she remained silent about these stumbling years.

It was Masao Maruyama, Political thinker, who presented a thorough-going analysis of Japanese totalitarianism immediately; he became famous almost overnight by in his 1946 article, “Logic and Psychology of Utra-Nationalism.” Although many evaluations and critiques have been presented regarding his works, there is one problem Maruyama himself confessed as a most serious omission in his thought; he did not engage with the nuclear question, although he was a hibakusha. Besides some psychological reasons, we suggest his pluralistic pragmatism, which worked well in criticizing totalitarianism, as responsible for such failure.

Hiroshima-based philosopher Ichirō Moritaki had to go through a total soulsearching after undergoing the A-bombing, which deprived him of his right eye. Realizing the need to overcome the “civilization of power,” he began advocating the “civilization of beneficence” and became a committed leader of the antinuclear campaign. However, even for him it took three decades to come to announce “the absolute negation of the nuclear” including power generation. Why? He confessed to having been under a spell of the words of “peaceful use.” But eventually he broke free of it as he became convinced of the “no threshold theory for radiation risk.”

Peace movements in postwar Japan appeared as early as around 1950 under growing American-Soviet confrontations. Though the newly enacted peace constitution brought favorable conditions for peace movements, Japan’s conservative ruling class had little enthusiasm for postwar democracy while surrendering to US demand for military bases and Japan’s rearmament. Thus, postwar Japanese peace movements have taken it upon themselves to pursue peace and democracy. This double task has often thrown peace movements into political difficulties in maintaining their coherence and autonomy.

Successful peace movements in 1950s like anti-US base struggles in Uchinada and Sunagawa and the nationwide campaign against atomic and hydrogen bombs had in common a coherent sense of purpose among the participants. Meanwhile, the struggle against the revision of the Japan-US Security Treaty in 1960 turned the largest political protest ever, and therefore, although its goal was frustrated, the government was thereafter obliged to take into consideration Japanese people’s strong pacifist sentiment. Yet, peace groups in the end fell apart with bitter antagonism among them. They had never agreed upon what security arrangement was desirable and possible in place of the proposed revision of the treaty.

The low-key defense policy after 1960 and the proliferating peace culture through media, education and municipalities gave birth to the de facto national identity of a ‘peace state.’ However, this ‘peace state’ has left two serious problems unresolved. While the ‘peace state’ relies on a large US military presence, Japan has not yet achieved the historical reconciliation with neighboring nations. Second, a curious coexistence between the pacifist constitution and the security pact has been possible only through the concentration of major US military bases in Okinawa. Japan’s ‘peace state’ has actually been an isolated one country pacifism with an unjust security regime. Peace movements have not yet effectively come to grips with these problems

This paper aims to examine negative effects given to women in Japan by the Japanese governmentʼs recent policy of promotion of women’s active participation, and by the draft of the revision of constitutional law made by the major ruling party Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Considered these effects, it will show the forthcoming agenda for the Japanese feminist movement to tackle with.

The Abe administration has come to express “Promotion of Womenʼs Active Participation” as a growth strategy in order to revive Japanese economy since April 2013, and has showed some concrete plans for its actual practice. In this strategy, building a “Society where All Women Shine” was held up as one of the most crucial tasks for the administration.

The Abe administration has come to express “Promotion of Womenʼs Active Participation” as a growth strategy in order to revive Japanese economy since April 2013, and has showed some concrete plans for its actual practice. In this strategy, building a “Society where All Women Shine” was held up as one of the most crucial tasks for the administration.

The above-mentioned movements seem contrary to each other. However, if we analyse them simultaneously from a perspective of the national policies on economy and security, a common intention behind them becomes apparent. It means the Abe administration has the intention to utilise women, especially highly educated women, for the economic and military revival of Japan. In this sense, familsm becomes an effective tool to mobilise nationals to join forces with these policies. How much can the Japanese feminist movement challenge this intention? It stands at the crossroads now.

This article aims to reveal how the movements to record air raids in Fukuoka began in 1970s, expanded in 1980s, and have continued until now. Fukuoka, which has the large industrial cities and the experience of the air raids and of the fortification for the Korean War, had invented the various peace movements by the labor union cultural circles in the context of anti-base movement since 1950s. In 1970s, these peace circles organized the Society to Record Air Raids in Kiakyushu-shi, Omuta-shi, and Fukuoka-shi on their own initiative, and began to collect the notes about the experiences of the air raids in Fukuoka and the sources of US Strategic Bombing Surveys. In 1980s, The Teacherʼs Union in Fukuoka, women’s groups, and Local Union and Junior Chamber in Amagi-Asakura area also proceeded to undertake the movements to record air raids.

After the latter half of the 1980s, there appeared various measures of the movements to record air raids. For example, the exhibition about air raids was held on Fukuoka-shi in 1985. Moreover, the movement for erection of the peace monument arose among the citizens of Omta city, involving the city assembly in 1988. In recent years, the memorizing of the achievements of the activists who have taken part in the movement to record air raids is proceeding.

These circumstances show that the movements to record air raids in Fukuoka have four features as follows. Firstly, “free agency” of the residents in each town led the movements sustainable. Secondly, cooperation with each civil group was based on “communality”. Thirdly, the participants of the movements shared “actuality”, their attitude to understand the Vietnam War or the environmental problems as their own problems. Lastly, the civil movements were “influential” in public policies by local government.

The U.S. military base is under construction in Ukawa area in Kyotango city, Kyoto prefecture. In February 2013, the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the U.S. President Barack Obama agreed to install an X-band radar in Ukawa area in order to strengthen missile defense system. After this announcement, the plan was unveiled that both governments planed not only installation of the military radar but also constructing new military base there. Residents of Kyoto prefecture including community members of Ukawa area raised many questions and showed their fear such as accidents and incidents by the U.S. soldiers, impact of an electromagnetic wave from the radar, and destruction of beautiful environment and scenery. However, after the negotiation between Japanese government and local governments, in September 2013, a governor of Kyoto prefecture and a mayor of Kyotango city officially announced to accept this plan. Then, construction work started in May of 2014. the U.S. military officially began to be stationed in Kyotango city from October 2014consisted of about 20 soldiers and 70 security workers and technical experts dispatched by private companies to support the military.

This article aims to analyze the dynamic process of militarization in Ukawa area. According to an important work of Cynthia Enloe, militarization is operated through various actions and decisions including appropriation of concepts, nonmilitary activities, and relationship among people. The militarization of Ukawa area was operated (1) prioritizing and strengthening the framework of national security, (2) practices to limit persons/subjects involved in the problem and weaken the autonomy of the local community, (3) changing community space under the control of military power. Therefore, the militarization of Ukawa area works through not only physical construction of military base but also various nonmilitary and non-political phenomenon.