2002 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Formation of Public Sphere in East Asia
| Project/Area Number |
12620076
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Politics
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| Research Institution | The University of Tokyo |
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Principal Investigator |
MITANI Hiroshi The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Professor, 大学院・総合文化研究科, 教授 (50114666)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
NAMIKI Yoshohisa The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Professor, 大学院・総合文化研究科, 教授 (80155986)
KUROZUMI Makoto The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Professor, 大学院・総合文化研究科, 教授 (00153411)
JI wei-dong Kobe University, Graduate School of Law, Professor, 大学院・法学研究科, 教授 (70224889)
IWATSUKI Junichi Hitotsubashi University, Graduate School of Lauguage and Society, Lecturer, 大学院・言語社会研究科, 専任講師 (80313162)
MURATA Yujiro The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Professor, 大学院・総合文化研究科, 助教授 (70190923)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2000 – 2002
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| Keywords | Pablic Sphere / Democracy / Habermas / East Asia / China / Korea / Japan / Vietnam |
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| Research Abstract |
The aim of this project was to search for the possibility of democracy in East Asia. We organized a multi-national research group, consisted of the Japanese, the Koreans, the Chinese and the Americans, to carry out comparative study of the histories of Japan, Korea, China and Vietnam at the turn of the 20th century.
We held seven workshops and one open symposium in three years. During our discussions, we got some view points for achieving liberal democracy in non-Western countries. One is that we cannot import a complete set of liberal democracy where little tradition of liberalism had existed. Thus, we had better not to use the terms like 'democracy' or 'human rights.' Instead, we had better analyze the aspects of democracy , search for the traditions that had enabled 'open and public discussion' in each society, and tactically combine them with each other in the course of political life.
We found that the custom formation of 'public discussion' and the media that supported it were more important than the introduction of political ideologies or institutions. We investigated the aspects of its process as follows : the custom of decision making in the government, the custom of decision making in private sector, the change of communication between the government and the private sector, the emergence of 'public space' that enables the criticism of the government by the private , the role of mass media in its process, the process that words gain supremacy over violence, and the process that enables the losers to come back in political life.
We hope that people who are eager to establish democracy in non-Western world will pay sincere attention to our insights and further develop them.
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