Super Long-term Effects of Historical Events: The Boshin Civil War and Political Economy of Contemporary Japan

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K21681
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 6:Political science and related fields
• Research Institution: Nihon University (2020-2021); University of Niigata Prefecture (2019)
• Principal Investigator: KUBOTA Yuichi 日本大学, 法学部, 准教授 (40710075)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 原田 勝孝 福岡大学, 経済学部, 准教授 (30738810) ; 伊藤 岳 広島大学, 国際協力研究科, 助教 (80773895)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-06-28 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 長期的影響 / 戊辰戦争 / 現代日本

Outline of Final Research Achievements

By collecting empirical data, this research project aimed to explore the legacy of battles and violence in the Boshin War over the contemporary Japanese society. For this purpose, we examined a) the mechanisms of battles and one-sided violence in the Boshin War and b) the relationship between such political violence and sociopolitical behavior of citizens in the present time. This project implemented a pioneering empirical study on a historical case of civil war and addressed socially important issues by analyzing data on the legacy of the Boshin War, which is one of the most significant historical events in contemporary Japan. Additionally, we sought to generate interdisciplinary spin-off effects on related academic fields through quantitative analyses of the impact of historical events.

Free Research Field

政治学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の意義は以下の３点にある。第一に、近代日本の内戦を対象とした先駆的実証分析と、後続研究が利用可能な新たなデータセットの構築である。また第二に、本研究の成果は現代社会における歴史的遺産の理解を促すことにもつながる。そして第三に、これまで重要性が指摘されながらも中心的に扱われてこなかった歴史事象が及ぼす影響の定量的な分析の提示によって、政治学だけでなく周辺学術分野の方向性を大きく変える学際的な波及効果が大いに見込まれることである。