“Human Nature and Politics” in 1970s Japan: The Political Implications of Considering the Japanese as“ Relational” or“ Contextual” People

HARUNA Nobuo

With the call for “scientification” of the study, the investigation of human nature has ceased to be undertaken as a proper research agenda within the present scholarship of political studies. Today, the classic agenda of “human nature and politics” is discovered and studied only as remnants of past philosophers. Nevertheless, political reform programs and new policy schemes are continuously presented with reference to specific understandings of human nature. The classic theme, “human nature and politics,” can be found in such contemporary constructs, not only in historical writings.

As an example, this paper will examine a political and social reform proposal submitted by politically appointed advisory groups under the Ōhira administration at the end of the 1970s. To be specific the uneasy relationship between the so-called neo-liberal reforms advocated in the proposal and the understanding of Japanese people as “relational” beings will be focused. This paper attempts to figure out why and how the conflicting two thoughts merged into one policy program, and what coordination took place in order to resolve the discrepancy.