| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
KOGA Keita Osaka International University, Law/Politics/Economics, Professor (90186643)
SUGITA Atsushi Hosei University, Law, Professor (30154470)
TERASHIMA Toshio Kansai University, Law, Professor (70155464)
KIKUCHI Masao Mie Chukyo University, Modern Law and Economics, Professor (90153048)
TOMIZAWA Katsu Doshisha University, Law, Professor (60121597)
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| Research Abstract |
This common research project has been carried on by twelve political theorists who are now teaching History of Political Thought and Political Theory at a number of universities throughout Japan. The common theme with which we have tackled together was: "A Paradigm Shift of Political Theory: Toward a New Theoretical Construction in the 21" Century." Faced with a number of novel phenomena and events surrounding politics today, we have attempted to present new normative values and perspectives in which these "anomalies" can be better analyzed and understood. We have shared our passion and persistent research concerns to make sense of the present world and its politics in terms of the History of Political Thought and Political Theory. For the past four years we had fourteen seminars where each one of us in turn presented his research paper. We also have invited to these research meetings and conferences prominent theorists and thinkers such as Dr. Johan Gaining, Professor John Keane, Prof
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essor Noriaki Ono, and Professor Osamu Nishitani.
As good fruits of our common research endeavors some of our members have already published the following excellent books. Toshio Terashima, Shiminteki fufukujyu [Civil Disobedience] (Tokyo: Fukosha Publishing Company, 2004). Masao Kikuchi, Gendai no communitarianism to 'dai san no michi' [The Modern Communitarianism and 'the Third Way'](Tokyo: Fukosha Publishing Company, 2004). Ryusaku Yamada, Taishushakai to democracy [Mass Society and Democracy](Tokyo: Fukosha Publishers, 2004). Masatsugu Maruyama, Kankyo seiji riron [Environmental Political Theory](Tokyo: Fukosha Publishing Company, 2006). From now on there will be published by Fukosha Publishing Company eight more books in the same series one after another.
There are many good results that we have gained out of this common research project. One of the most conspicuous fruits was the shared recognition and understanding, which we had come to entertain, about the multi-layered dimensions of politics today, as we can find it in such different dimensions as local area, the system of the nation state, the region of East Asia, and the global system. We began to discuss the fluctuation of the sovereign nation state paradigm about two decades ago. At the present we can witness the dynamism of politics in the mutual combination as well as the serious conflicts of political operations that are observable at the multi-layered levels such as locality, the nation state, region, and the global system. We need to reexamine and reformulate radically such important concepts of politics as power, liberty, equality, and democracy in order to shed light to the ever-changing and developing dynamism of politics today. Less
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