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Nationalism and History in Contemporary Japan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
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What are the characteristics of contemporary Japanese nationalism? And is there a “surge of nationalism in Japan,” as so often claimed (Kitaoka 2001; Sasaki 2001; Hasegawa and Togo 2008; NYT 2013), or even a “drift to the right” in the country (Kato 2014; Nakano 2015)? Distinguishing between elite maneuverings and popular attitudes, in this article I first identify what I consider to be the major topics of current nationalist discourse, and then introduce the chief proponents of strengthening of nationalist attitudes in society. In the final section, I discuss some recent attempts to instill nationalist attitudes in young people through middle-school education, especially the teaching of history and civics, but also through moral education. I conclude that in light of a political establishment tarnished by never-ending scandals, attempts to force moral education into the curriculum as a way of fostering nationalist and patriotic attitudes among young people is a particularly duplicitous undertaking, discrediting the very notions so highly praised by its advocates.
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.- Copyright
- Copyright © The Authors 2016
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