Hostname: page-component-55f67697df-zpzq9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-09T04:40:00.944Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Re-Branding of Abe Nationalism: Global Perspectives on Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Tessa Morris-Suzuki
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In 2010, the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) launched a highly successful TV show called The Gruen Transfer. The title refers to the disorienting psychological effects produced on consumers by the architecture of shopping malls, whose dazzle and noise are deliberately designed to mesmerize: on entering, “our eyes glaze over, our jaws slacken… we forget what we came for and become impulse buyers”. The ABC's Gruen Transfer explored the weird, wonderful and disorienting effects produced by the advertising industry. Its most popular element was a segment called “The Pitch”, in which representatives of two advertising agencies competed to sell the unsellable to the show's audience - creating gloriously sleek videos to market bottled air, promote the virtues of banning religion, or advocate generous pay raises for politicians.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 11 , Issue 28 , July 2013 , e1
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
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 2013

References

1 See the Gruen Transfer website.

2 For example, J. Berkshire Miller and Takashi Yokota, “Japan Keeps its Cool: Why Tokyo's New Government is more Pragmatic than Hawkish”, Foreign Affairs, 21 January 2013; J. Berkshire Miller and Takashi Yokota, “The Twisted Truth about Tokyo”, Japan Foreign Policy Forum, March-April 2013.

3 Taniguchi Tomohiko, “Japan's Diplomacy Under the New Abe Cabinet”, address to the Brookings Institution Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, 27 October 2006.

4 Komori Yoshihisa, “Who's Afraid of Shinzo Abe”, New York Times, 30 September 2006; see also Komori Yoshihisa, “Nashonarizumu no Kyojitsu”, Sankei Shinbun, 11 February 2007.

5 Satō Kumi, “Kaigai Media Senryaku: Shushō wa Chijarazuyoku Gutairon Katare”, Yomiuri Shinbun (Tokyo morning edition), 23 February 2007.

6 The report in question is Emma Chanlett- Avery, Mark E. Manyin, William H. Cooper and Ian E. Rinehart, “Japan-US Relations: Issues for Congress”, Congressional Research Service, 1 May 2013; Prime Minister Abe's response was given in a debate in the Budget Committee of the Lower House of the Diet, 13 May 2013.

7 Prime Minister Abe addressing the Lower House of the Diet, 2 October 2006.

8 Kevin Doak, “Japan Chair Platform: Shinzo Abe's Civic Nationalism”, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 15 May 2013; see also Komori Yoshihisa, “Yasukuni Sanpai wa Kokoro no Mondai”, Sankei Shinbun, 8 June 2013.

9 Kevin Doak, “Japan Chair Platform: Shinzo Abe's Civic Nationalism”, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 15 May 2013,

10 The quotation on South Korea comes from Doak's recent interview with the Sankei's Komori Yoshihisa about the issue of Japanese politicians’ visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where he depicts Japan as being at the mercy of unreasonable criticisms from “atheist China” which seeks to “justify its communist dictatorship” and from “emotional South Korea which links Japan-bashing to ethnic pride” (Nihon tataki o minzoku puraido ni tsunageru jōjoteki na Kankoku) - Komori, “Yasukuni Sanpai”

11 Rogers Brubaker, “Myths and Misconceptions in the Study of Nationalism”, in John Hall ed., The State of the Nation: Ernest Gellner and the Theory of Nationalism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 272-306, quotation from p. 298.

12 For example, Brubaker, “Myths and Misconceptions”; Stephen Shulman, “Challenging the Civic/Ethnic and East/West Dichotomies in the Study of Nationalism”, Comparative Political Studies, vol. 35, no. 5, June 2002, pp. 554-585; Bernard Yack, “The Myth of the Civic Nation”, in Ronald Beiner ed., Theorizing Nationalism, New York, State University of New York Press, 1998, pp. 103-118.

13 David McCrone, The Sociology of Nationalism, London, Routledge, 1998, p. 9.

14 Prime Minister Abe, addressing the Upper House Special Commission on the Basic Law on Education, 22 November 2006.

15 Abe Shinzo addressing the Lower House Cabinet Committee, 14 April 2006.

16 Prime Minister Abe responding to a question in the Lower House Budget Committee, 18 March 2013.

17 See the homepage of the Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership; on Abe's position as head of the Association's parliamentary liaison group, see here.

18 See, for example, David Brown, Contemporary Nationalism, p. 49.

19 Kurimoto Shinichirō, Abe Shinzō and Eto Seichi, “Hoshi Kakumei” Sengen: Anchi Riberaru e no Sentaku, Tokyo, Gendai Shōrin, 1996; see particularly the first chapter, written by Abe: “Watashi no ‘Hoshu Seijika Sengen’“.

20 Abe Shinzō, Utsukishii Kuni e, Tokyo, Bungei Shinjūsha, 2006, p. 17.

21 Abe, Utsukishii Kuni e, particularly pp. 18-23.

22 See the full text of the Liberal Democratic Party's current proposal for constitutional reform on the Party's website.