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ahorbinskiBibliographic Data: Najita, Tetsuo. Hara Kei in the Politics of Compromise, 1905-1915. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967.
Main Argument:
Historiographical Engagement: Mostly the question of the end of "Taisho democracy," in Japanese
Preface: Argument, Sources, Examples Najita argues that at the time he was writing (47 years ago!), studies of the party era in prewar Japanese politics were generally captive to two fallacies: 1) giving too much weight to documentary evidence written "through the eyes of these idealists who believed that compromises within the political order indicated submission to 'absolutism' and that those in power could be quickly and decisively overthrown (daha) if the parties remained firmly united"; and 2) "to see the parties as the major cause for the political dislocations underlying Japan's steady drift in the 1930s toward a disastrous war" (ix, x). Hence, according to Najita, "an analytical distinction must be made between first, the sustained struggle by the parties (which, while no doubt causing political discontent along the way, changed their status from groups of marginal significance into powerful elites in the government) and second, those driving forces accompanying rapid modernization which generated political dislocations of the sort described by Maruyama. …the casual lines between the two should be treated with considerable care" [if, indeed, they exist at all] (xi).
Important points
# Hara effected a transformation in the regional political structure "from the system of 'self-government' [sic] planned by Yamagata into a pervasive, party-oriented interest structure" (78)
# By the so-called "Taisho political crisis" in 1913, "the systematic expansion of Seiyûkai power had resulted in the steady erosion of the bases of the ruling cliques" and had "made a multiparty system in Japan a practical impossibility" (121)
# Katsura forming the Dôshikai in January 1913 was a direct reaction to the Seiyûkai's power and brought about an end to the Hara/Katsura compromise that "had dominated politics since 1905, an alliance that had provided a working relationship between the major centers of power--the House of Peers, the Lower House, and the bureaucracy--and had stymied the growth of a second party" (140)
# The reforms that were enacted under the Yamamoto cabinet of 1913 were a triumph for the "politics of compromise" in that they struck down barriers to party government and reduced the influence of the Yamagata faction
# The Seiyûkai created its enemies by stimulating the growth of a rival anti-Seiyû coalition
Conclusion: Argument, Sources, Examples Najita argues, among other things, that "by enhancing its power the Seiyûkai, in fact, from 1905 on, prevented this Meiji elite from perpetuating itself and the style of rule commonly called transcendental government" (215). He also argues that the parties' ties with the general public were "tenuous and vague" and that the elite politicians of the parties distrusted the masses and viewed them solely instrumentally (214). In summary, "the crisis of 1912-1913 dramatically reaffirmed the overall trend of parties to move steadily into the mainstream of power relationships in the Meiji constitutional order" and "the politics of compromise was [sic] intended to overcome the structural disadvantages of the Meiji political order and the Yamagata faction imbedded in it" (219).
Critical assessment: Shockingly enough, dear readers, I don't actually think that the achievement(s) of imperial democracy can be laid solely at the feet of one Hara Kei, who was if nothing else a smooth operator--indeed, he seems rather like Itô Hirobumi in this regard, with the important difference that Itô eschewed creating a faction or a reliable patronage network and Hara lived for politics and for attaining political power. We might also add that both of them were nonetheless assassinated on railway platforms; make of that what you will. More fundamentally, I think Najita is wrong about what happened in the 1930s (see Young and Gordon, below) and I think that he recommits the mistake of the elite party politicians themselves by seeing in the riots of the era of agitation for imperial democracy (1905-18) as apolitical, uninformed rabble-rousing. I leave filling in the details of my objections to that view as an exercise for the reader.
Further reading: Gordon, Imperial Democracy; Louise Young, Japan's Total Empire
Meta notes: It's not (only) politicians who make history.
Main Argument:
…the growth of the parties in Japan was the result of a crucial transformation among party men from an ideological to a strategical orientation; or, from an attitude of uncompromising opposition to the government based on the ideal of a single, unified, popular party (mintô gôdô) to that of realistic compromises within the government structure. In particular the successes of one party, the Seiyûkai, under Hara Kei, in pursuing this course of action were decisive in steering party politics in Japan away from multiparties toward two major competing party alignments. (xii)
Historiographical Engagement: Mostly the question of the end of "Taisho democracy," in Japanese
Preface: Argument, Sources, Examples Najita argues that at the time he was writing (47 years ago!), studies of the party era in prewar Japanese politics were generally captive to two fallacies: 1) giving too much weight to documentary evidence written "through the eyes of these idealists who believed that compromises within the political order indicated submission to 'absolutism' and that those in power could be quickly and decisively overthrown (daha) if the parties remained firmly united"; and 2) "to see the parties as the major cause for the political dislocations underlying Japan's steady drift in the 1930s toward a disastrous war" (ix, x). Hence, according to Najita, "an analytical distinction must be made between first, the sustained struggle by the parties (which, while no doubt causing political discontent along the way, changed their status from groups of marginal significance into powerful elites in the government) and second, those driving forces accompanying rapid modernization which generated political dislocations of the sort described by Maruyama. …the casual lines between the two should be treated with considerable care" [if, indeed, they exist at all] (xi).
Important points
# Hara effected a transformation in the regional political structure "from the system of 'self-government' [sic] planned by Yamagata into a pervasive, party-oriented interest structure" (78)
# By the so-called "Taisho political crisis" in 1913, "the systematic expansion of Seiyûkai power had resulted in the steady erosion of the bases of the ruling cliques" and had "made a multiparty system in Japan a practical impossibility" (121)
# Katsura forming the Dôshikai in January 1913 was a direct reaction to the Seiyûkai's power and brought about an end to the Hara/Katsura compromise that "had dominated politics since 1905, an alliance that had provided a working relationship between the major centers of power--the House of Peers, the Lower House, and the bureaucracy--and had stymied the growth of a second party" (140)
# The reforms that were enacted under the Yamamoto cabinet of 1913 were a triumph for the "politics of compromise" in that they struck down barriers to party government and reduced the influence of the Yamagata faction
# The Seiyûkai created its enemies by stimulating the growth of a rival anti-Seiyû coalition
Conclusion: Argument, Sources, Examples Najita argues, among other things, that "by enhancing its power the Seiyûkai, in fact, from 1905 on, prevented this Meiji elite from perpetuating itself and the style of rule commonly called transcendental government" (215). He also argues that the parties' ties with the general public were "tenuous and vague" and that the elite politicians of the parties distrusted the masses and viewed them solely instrumentally (214). In summary, "the crisis of 1912-1913 dramatically reaffirmed the overall trend of parties to move steadily into the mainstream of power relationships in the Meiji constitutional order" and "the politics of compromise was [sic] intended to overcome the structural disadvantages of the Meiji political order and the Yamagata faction imbedded in it" (219).
Critical assessment: Shockingly enough, dear readers, I don't actually think that the achievement(s) of imperial democracy can be laid solely at the feet of one Hara Kei, who was if nothing else a smooth operator--indeed, he seems rather like Itô Hirobumi in this regard, with the important difference that Itô eschewed creating a faction or a reliable patronage network and Hara lived for politics and for attaining political power. We might also add that both of them were nonetheless assassinated on railway platforms; make of that what you will. More fundamentally, I think Najita is wrong about what happened in the 1930s (see Young and Gordon, below) and I think that he recommits the mistake of the elite party politicians themselves by seeing in the riots of the era of agitation for imperial democracy (1905-18) as apolitical, uninformed rabble-rousing. I leave filling in the details of my objections to that view as an exercise for the reader.
Further reading: Gordon, Imperial Democracy; Louise Young, Japan's Total Empire
Meta notes: It's not (only) politicians who make history.