The Age of Visions and Arguments: Parliamentarianism and the National Public Sphere in Early Meiji Japan (Harvard East Asian Monographs)

The Meiji Restoration of 1868 inaugurated a period of great change in Japan; it is seldom associated, however, with advances in civil and political rights. By studying parliamentarianism—the theories, arguments, and polemics marshaled in support of a representative system of government—Kyu Hyun Kim uncovers a much more complicated picture of this era than is usually given. Bringing a fresh perspective as well as drawing on seldom-studied archival materials, Kim examines how parliamentarianism came to dominate the public sphere in the 1870s and early 1880s and gave rise to the movement among local activists and urban intellectuals to establish a national assembly. At the same time, Kim contends that we should confront the public sphere of Meiji Japan without insisting on fitting it into schemes of historical progress, from premodernity to modernity, from feudalism to democracy. The Japanese state was inextricably linked, in its origins as well as its continuing growth, to the self-transformation of Japanese society. One could not change without effecting a change in the other. The Meiji state's efforts to ensure that the state and society were connected only through channels firmly controlled by itself were constantly and successfully contested by the public sphere. "The Meiji Restoration of 1868 inaugurated a period of great change in Japan; it is seldom associated, however, with advances in civil and political rights. By studying parliamentarianism - the theories, arguments, and polemics marshaled in support of a representative system of government - Kyu Hyun Kim uncovers a much more complicated picture of this era than is usually given."--Jacket Front Matter 1 Contents 13 Introduction 23 Part I 47 Chapter 1 49 Chapter 2 89 Part II 121 Chapter 3 123 Chapter 4 159 Chapter 5 213 Chapter 6 246 Part III 277 Chapter 7 279 Chapter 8 310 Part IV 351 Chapter 9 353 Chapter 10 401 Chapter 11 437 Conclusion 465 Reference Matter 475 Bibliography 477 Character List of Names 507 Character List of Terms 512 Index 521 Series List 543