A BASIC STUDY ON POWER STRUCTURES DURING THE YOKUSAN (THE SUPPORTING ASSOCIATION OF THE ADMINISTRATION) REGIME PERIOD : RESEARCHES ON THE PROCESSES OF POLICY DECISIONS AND POWER INTEGRATION IN LOCAL AREAS

• Project/Area Number: 08451076
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Japanese history
• Research Institution: KYUSHU UNIVERSITY
• Principal Investigator: ARIMA Manabu KYUSHU UNIVERSITY,GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL AND CULTURAL STUDIES PROFESSOR, 大学院・比較社会文化研究科, 教授 (80108612)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): MORIYAMA Atsushi UNIVERSITY OF SHIZUOKA,FACULTY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS,LECTURER, 国際関係学部, 講師 (60295566)
• Project Period (FY): 1996 – 1997
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 1997)
• Budget Amount: ¥4,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥4,200,000); Fiscal Year 1997: ¥1,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000); Fiscal Year 1996: ¥3,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,100,000)
• Keywords: Taisei Yokusankai (The Supporting Association of the Administration) / Local branches of the Taisei Yokusankai / Senji Taisei (War Footing) / Kokumin Undo (National Movement) / Kokumin Doin (National Mobilization) / 新体制運動 / 国民統合 / 国家総動員 / 戦時議会 / 新体制 / 翼賛政治会 / 翼賛壮年団

Research Abstract

This project has collected basic data that would provide a new way of understanding of political power structures between the Japanese-Chinese War and the Pacific War in Japan. In order to examine the power structures, it is supposed to be most important to clarify specific features of political and social processes of decision making on different levels in detail. However, it has been very difficult to analyze them as such in reality, This is partly because the number of archives that we can rely on and, in particular that could tell us the actual conditions of infiltration of policy and mobilization is very few.
The major aim of the project is, therefore, to collect and re-organize archives concerning, firstly the processes of decision making after the establishment of the Taisei Yokusankai (The Supporting Association of the Administration) and, secondly activities of local branches of the Taisei Yokusankai. The most successful contribution of the project is to introduce and to analyz e bulletins of the Fukuoka prefectural branch and archives of the Tagawa branch in Fukuoka Prefecture.
The bulletins of the Fukuoka prefectural branch of the Taisei Yokusankai ('Yokusan Fukuoka', 'Jiho', and 'Taisei Yokusan') were discovered only through this project and have not been published yet. It has been believed that most local branches of the Taisei Yokusankai had published their own bulletins, although few of them have been reported so far.
It is more difficult find a case that a certain amount of original archives documenting the activities of local branches have been fully maintained. The amount of archives of the Tagawa branch is large enough to be examined in detail. The project has made a catalog of the archives, which have been known only within a limited circle, and enabled us to understand their whole content. It will also enable us to further study concrete organizational formations in local branches, to examine a way of mobilization through ritualized practices and then to understand how the local branches of the Taisei Yokusankai functioned as a part of an institution in which people were forced to deliver food to the government or to keep savings.