Abe Shinzō and Japanese Nationalism: What’s Next?
Kevin M DoakGeorgetown University
In November 2020, a few months after Prime Minister Abe resigned, Yamagiwa Sumio
published a short assessment of Abe’s achievements, noting that “Abe’s administration
stabilized the political situation, and through Abenomics expanded employment andraised the value of the stock market. And his government seems to have strengthened the
US-Japan Alliance through the Peace and Security Law. But on the key points thatconservatives had placed their hopes—“escape from the Postwar Regime” (that is, escapefrom the fetters of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial view of history that Japan was a bad
country, an invading state) and a revision of the constitution to make Japan into a country
that could defend itself on its own, on these matters that were the heart of Abe’s politicalvision, he was not able to produce any result.”1 Of course, in his own words, Abehimself noted when leaving office other successes (the restoration of the economy in
Tōhoku, the creation of four million jobs and his globist (地球儀) foreign policy), evenas he admitted some disappointments (the unresolved ratchi mondai, failure to sign apeace treaty with Russia, and inability to revise the constitution). When assessing Abe’s
nationalism, we should not ignore his globist foreign policy that showed him to be a
responsible agent for peace and security in the region. But Yamagiwa notes there weremore failures—leaving in place the Murayama and Kōno statements, and his failure to
make a subsequent visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, the unresolved Northern Territories issue
and adopting a servile attitude toward China, especially in regard to its “one belt, oneroad” strategy. Yamagiwa ends on an important note: “conservative politics will notleave the scene with Prime Minister Abe.”2 I would add, nationalism also did not leave
the scene when Prime Minister Abe resigned. Or more accurately, the underlying issues
driving a reconsideration of nationalism in Japan have not suddenly disappeared with theend of the Abe government.
At the same time, we must not overstate the importance of Prime Minister Abe for both
Japanese conservative politics and for Japanese nationalism. One cannot question thefact that he has made tremendous, even unprecedented, contributions to bothconservatism and nationalism in Japan. But any nationalism that is simply instigatedfrom the top down, that is, any nationalism that is indoctrinated in the people by the State(or its officials) is not a healthy nationalism. Hence, Sakurai Yoshiko’s point here is avery wise one: “We cannot simply forever ride the rail that Prime Minister Abe has laid
down for us. It is important that the national people continue studying and that the nation
as a whole has the strength of spirit to find the next Abe Shinzō and cultivate that newleader.”3 In short, the cause and thus the solution of Japan’s political (and cultural)
problems lie at the level of the nation, not at the level of the State. That solution is notentirely dependent on political or media elites either. It must come from the people(kokumin) themselves.

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Sakurai points to Fukuzawa Yukichi’s An Encouragement of Learning (Gakumon no
susume) and its exhortation to study in order to distinguish oneself at times of national
uncertainty. As well she should. An Encouragement of Learning has been called “thefirst real work of nationalism [kokuminshugi] in Japan.”4 And for good reason. In thatbook, Fukuzawa complained that “it can be said that Japan only has a government, but
not yet a nation (kokumin).”5 The whole point of An Encouragement of Learning was toencourage study as a method of exploring the conditions for making the Japanese people
a true nation (kokumin). For Fukuzawa, the purpose of study always was both for thedevelopment of the individual and at the same time, for the development of the nation(kokumin).
Now it cannot honestly be said that today Japan still does not have a nation. Rather, theproblem today is what kind of nation does Japan have? From the early postwar period,
Maruyama Masao identified the problem as the need to build up a healthy nationalism
and his analysis “underlined his sharp distinction between the nation (kokumin) and thestate (kokka).”6 In short, Maruyama’s healthy nationalism was a continuation of
Fukuzawa’s project. And this is the same idea that Prime Minister Abe appealed to,when he called for a “healthy nationalism” (kenzen na nashonarizumu) in contemporary
Japan. Of course, the left goes crazy when they hear this call for a “healthy nationalism.”
But why? Certainly they don’t prefer a sick nationalism, do they? And I do hope theJapanese Left does not intend to embrace Maruyama’s alternative to nationalism, whichis statism (kokkashugi). I think there are two different reactions behind the Left’s
recoiling at the call for a healthy nationalism in Japan. One is their prior commitment toglobalism. For some this means American domination of Japan’s military, diplomaticand political institutions; for others on the Left, it means a withdrawal from the American
umbrella in favor of the hegemony of communist China. There may still be a few naïve
Japanese who think of globalism as a utopia: a “no place” where there is no national
influence, neither America’s, China’s, nor Japan’s. But in either case, globalism takes
precedence over building a healthy Japanese nationalism. Globalism is a common
problem that Japanese nationalism shares with American nationalism and an issue that wewill look more closely at below. The other reason for the Left’s reaction, one shared by
Communist China, as well as by Leftists in the West and in South Korea, is that theirpreferred nationalism is an anti-imperialist minzokushugi. Here, the offense is not merely
the modifier “healthy” but the conception of nationalism as kokuminshugi, a nationalismthat historically has been associated with individual rights, capitalism, freedom of
religion and a range of values that are opposed by the leftist minzokushugisha as vestigesof Western cultural colonialism.
1. Conditions in the West Today
To make a fair assessment of nationalism in Japan and what influence Abe had on
Japanese nationalism, we have to follow the example of Fukuzawa and cast our eyes
further afield. Just as Fukuzawa published Conditions in the West (『西洋の事情』) on
the eve of the Meiji Restoration to guide his nation during those tumultuous times, we too
might look beyond Japan to capture what nationalism has to offer Japan today. All too
often, the Western media have emphasized Abe as a nationalist as though this means he is3some kind of atavistic throwback to the wartime period.7 If Abe advocates nationalism,
then they conclude he must be looking to start a war with his neighboring countries once
again. For the moment, let us set aside this gross misreading of nationalism as a form of
militarist statism—precisely what Maruyama argued against. Rather we should take into
consideration the current rise of nationalism in the West, the “Conditions in the West”(Seiyō no jijō) as they apply to nationalism today. Doing so should help us place Abe’s
nationalism in a broader, comparative light and see that it is not a return to the militarismof another time.
The first thing to consider is that nationalism has been on the rise in the West during theentire 21th century, and even earlier. Consider Neil Farage, the leader of the United
Kingdom Independence Party from 2006 and now the leader of the Brexit Party. His
nationalism is, among other things, aimed at restoring a sense of autonomy to the British
people over their own national affairs (i.e. Brexit). Or Marine Le Pen, leader of the
National Front and now the President of the National Rally Party in France. She also
wants to restore greater autonomy to the French people, particularly by liberating France
from the globalist influences of the European Union, NATO and the United States. In
Austria, there was Jörg Haider (1950-2008) who led the Freedom Party and laid thefoundations for the conservative, nationalist Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ)
Party. One could continue with other nationalist movements in Europe. But let me turnto Brazil, where President Jair Messias Bolsonaro represents a conservative, nationalist
and populist brand of politics that is often compared to the movement led by former
President Donald Trump in the U.S.A. And of course Trump remains the most famousand influential leader of a populist nationalist movement even today. Perhaps it is theirshared nationalist vision, resistance to globalism and respect for the autonomy of theirpeople that made the Trump-Abe relationship such a strong one during their times in
office.
Even from this brief survey of the rise of nationalism in the West, it is clear that politics
around the world have turned strongly toward a kind of populist nationalism that is, if notnew, at least newly vigorous on the political scene. Why that is the case is the subject I
will turn to next. But first, at a minimum, it should be evident that Abe Shinzō’snationalism was not a return to an earlier prewar Japanese kind of militarism. Rather, his
nationalism placed Japan squarely within the most interesting political developments ofthe early 21st century and, for all its anti-globalism, it shared a good deal with othernationalist movement around the world.
2. An Encouragement of Learning about Nationalism Today
Abe’s Understanding of Nationalism
One of the failures of many efforts to assess the nationalism of Abe Shinzō is that theyoften presume a highly abstract theory of nationalism which they impose onto Abe’s
actual thought, regardless of whether it fits his own explicit writing on the subject ofnationalism. In fact, I am still amazed at how little attention, especially outside of Japan,
has been given to Abe’s extensive discussion on nationalism in the chapter onnationalism in his book Utsukushii kuni e (later revised as Atarashii kuni e). Here4especially we need to follow Fukuzawa’s encouragement to study, and if we are to study
nationalism as it relates to Abe, it seems to me that the first place we must begin is withthis chapter where he outlines his own understanding of nationalism.
At the heart of the book is “Chapter 3: What is Nationalism?” Even a cursory reading of
this chapter will reveal Abe’s rejection of racism and ethnic nationalism. In the firstplace, he does not use the term “minzokushugi” for nationalism, but the loan word
nashonarizumu. This is not merely an arbitrary choice. Substantively, he praises
naturalized Japanese from Brazil and embraces as “one of us” anyone who is willing toplace his loyalty under the Hi-no-maru flag, regardless of his country of origin.
Sports provides the key metaphor for Abe in explaining nationalism that is democraticand nationalism that is not. He speaks of his fascination as a young boy watching theparades for the Tokyo Olympics, but this pride clearly comes from the performative
excellence of those athletes who represented Japan—not from their blood but from what
they would achieve as competitors in the games. He writes with pride also about
naturalized Japanese like Alessandro “Alex” Santos who fought for Japan in World Cup
soccer games. “Alex” and his fellow Brazilian-Japanese “Ramos” are embraced forwhat they are: fellow Japanese compatriots, men made Japanese by law, not by blood or
ethnicity.
And finally, Abe directly rejects minzokushugi by pointing to the example of AustralianGold Medalist, Cathy Freeman, whose Australian national identity co-exists with her
aboriginal identity. “Nationalism,” Abe concludes, “can be translated in various ways,
but if we dare to render it as minzokushugi, then Cathy Freeman would not be able tocarry both banners [Australian and Aboriginal) without being ripped apart within by thisnationalism.”8 Throughout the book, Abe consistently renders the Japanese nation as
kokumin, not as minzoku, a distinction made not only conceptually but also through his
description of how democratic nationalism functions in practice and the implications it
has for actual people.
Those who wish to know what concrete difference Abe’s nationalism might make inparticular policy issues are well-advised to read his book. But to appreciate how thisrenaissance of nationalism is deeply linked to the policies Abe sought to establish, one
merely needs to read the concluding lines from Toward a New Country:
Thus, when we line up all the issues that Japan faces, not just the North Korean
kidnapping issue, but even the territorial questions, the US-Japan relationship oreven economic issues like the TPP, I believe they all come from the same root.
Is this not the price we have had to pay for enjoying economic prosperity while
kicking these problems down the road, without a clear consciousness that the life
and treasure of the Japanese nation (Nihon kokumin) and the territory of Japan are
to be protected by the Japanese government’s own hands? Truly, “escape fromthe postwar regime” is still the most important theme for Japan, just as it was five
years earlier when I was the prime minister.
During the last general election, the LDP raised the slogan, “Take Back Japan.”This did not mean only to take back Japan from the Democratic Party

5government. I’ll go so far as to say that we are in a battle to take back the countryof Japan from postwar history by the hands of the Japanese people (Nihon
kokumin).9
One very specific policy implication of Abe’s nationalism is clear in the revised Ainu
New Law (アイヌ新法) that went into effect on May 24 2019. Yamagiwa complainsthat “considering the forced passage of the New Ainu Law and the Immigration Law (therevision of the Immigration Law) makes me painfully feel that if this is conservative
politics, I will stop supporting conservative administrations.”10 But once we take into
consideration nationalism as Abe understands it, a unity under the Hi-no-maru national
flag of people of different ethnicities, then there is nothing strange about the Ainu New
Law from the conservative nationalist standpoint of Abe.
But a multi-ethnic nationalism does not mean that pride in Japanese ethnicity (minzoku)
is forbidden. One of the sharpest minds ever to deal with this difficult problem ofnationalism was the Japanese jurist Tanaka Kōtarō, and his views on this matter are
worthy of our attention, not least because his conclusion strikes me as very similar to thatof Abe Shinzō. In his magnum opus A Theory of World Law written in the early 1930s,
Tanaka devoted over a hundred pages to the problem of “the concept of law and theconcept of minzoku.”11 He recognized that the nation (minzoku) was an important social
form of cultural identity, one that must not be dismissed. As he wrote, “each nation[minzoku] has its own special quality and through its special quality has its own share of
the culture of humanity and has a mission to contribute to this culture. Not only must we
regard as entirely proper man’s love for the nation to which he belongs, so long as it does
not prevent the accomplishment of this noble mission, but to have this kind of love is,like that for one’s family, a command of nature and on top of that a necessary condition
for man’s own moral completion.”12 The problem for Tanaka was not somethinginherent in minzoku identity, but the mistaken notion that law (and all morality) wereconfined within a minzoku limit. He placed the principles of law above the nation only
insofar as it needed to have moral legitimacy, and thus he strongly criticized Nazi
jurisprudence that regarded those people not considered to be members of the German
minzoku as subhuman, without any legal rights. Tanaka rejected this narrowminzokushugi and insisted that all human beings had certainly rights that were protectedunder the natural law. But so long as those rights were protected, there was no reason todeny others their cultural expression as members of a minzoku (nation).13 Nor did
Tanaka believe that all laws had to be “above the nation,” as the natural law is. So longas basic human rights were recognized, there was nothing wrong with laws that reflectednational moral traditions, particularly in the area of public (or criminal) law. There aresubtle differences between Tanaka’s thought on nationalism and that of Abe, differencesthat surely reflect the historical and cultural differences between the 1930s and today.
But in broad terms, both Tanaka and Abe see ethnic differences as contributing to humanculture, and they both place the law and human rights above the limitations of ethnicity.
With this in mind, let us now reconsider Yamagiwa’s complaint about the New Ainu
Law. The essence of the revised New Ainu Law (May 24, 2019) is well-expressed in
Article One. Article One states that the purpose of this law is “the realization of a society
in which the Ainu people can live with pride in their ethnicity (minzoku) and which

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respects that pride, and thereby contributes to the realization of a society where allmembers of the nation (kokumin) coexist with mutual respect for each other’s personality
and individuality.”14 This statement is of course completely consistent with Abe’s
outline of a nationalism that recognizes Japanese people of various ethnic origins. It isalso consistent with Tanaka’s argument that law should not be an expression of aparticular ethnic (minzoku) identity but should allow all ethnic nationalities (minzoku) tofulfill their own mission of contributing to world culture, even under a single State(kokka). Who could object to this vision of multi-national coexistence under the rule oflaw of a single constitutional State? One can imagine two different positions that might
object to this law. First, neo-liberal cosmopolitans who reject any defense of ethnic
particularity and simply reduce all people to individuals without cultural coloring.
Second, extreme ethnic nationalists like the Nazi jurists that Tanaka argued against who
held that there can only be one ethnic nation in one State (ichi minzoku, ichi kokka；ein
Volk, ein Staat). That Abe belongs to neither school of thought should be abundantly
clear. But whether Abe’s nationalism should be considered conservative requires further
study below. So, let us continue in this “encouragement of learning” (gakumon no
susume).
New Directions in the Understanding of Nationalism
I want to begin this review of new directions in the understanding of nationalism withconservative American writers for two reasons. First, I think there is a strategic
advantage in emphasizing how American are increasingly turning to nationalism as asolution to their cultural, social and political problems, because some postwar Japanese
have often looked to America as if it were by nature an antidote to nationalism. My
second is that I am an American, and the discourse on nationalism in America is the one I
am most familiar with. But from the short survey above of nationalist politicians aroundthe world, it should be evident that it is not only America that is increasingly interested
in nationalism. This section could easily be extended to incorporate the new appreciationof nationalism in Europe and other parts of the world. But I must keep in mind space
limits for this article.
One of the leading examples of new directions in understanding nationalism in the UnitedStates comes from Yuval Levin. Levin is the editor of National Affairs which he foundedin 2009 and is seen as the leader of reform conservatives (“reformicons”) who seek toreconnect to middle-class and low-income voters. His focus is unusual for those who
espouse nationalism. Rather than the state or the collective people, he emphasizes thespaces between the individual and the state: the intermediary institutions of family,communities and the market economy. His general argument can be seen from the title ofhis 2016 book, The Fractured Republic: Renewing America’s Social Contract in the Ageof Individualism. He argues that the “fractured republic” is the result of both liberals andconservatives looking back nostalgically to an earlier “golden era” which for liberals was
the mid-20th century and for conservatives the Reagan years. This is a mistake, according
to Levin. America has never had a perfect moment that we should return to in order to
fix the nation’s problems. What has been consistent in American history is
individualism, and the challenge for a restored republic is how to incorporate what Levincalls “expressive individualism” (“a desire to pursue one’s own path but also a yearning

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for fulfillment through the definition and articulation of one’s own identity”)15 into a
restored social contract. Levin suggests that we can use the successes of a specialized
economy to address the problems created by specialization. How? By relativizing themarket economy. The market economy is only one “specialized” area of social life, andit needs to be counterbalanced by those intermediary institutions of family , community,
charitable organizations, religious congregations, fraternal groups, and otherorganizations that are not dominated by the logic of the market but are based on adifferent set of moral principles. He points out that “economic debates are not the only
ones worth having, and are usually not the ones that run the deepest or that do the most toshape our society.”16
I see remarkable congruence in Levin’s vision for a restored American republic andAbe’s call to “take back Japan,” especially when we understand Abe’s nationalism as
both premised on individualism, respect for free market economy and also as an effort tobalance the Yoshida Doctrine’s economism with social and moral visions that seek torestore the dignity of the individual and the nation. Indeed, I think Abe would strongly
agree with Levin’s ultimate assessment of nationalism:
Nationalism can easily take toxic forms, especially in times of change andgrowing diversity and liberalization—cultural and economic. And it cansuffocate the mediating institutions, as it did in America starting early in thetwentieth century [and in Japan at the same time in kokkashugi]. But Americans[and Japanese] have always also had recourse to a more wholesome andconstructive nationalism, because our nation is to an exceptional degree a credal
nation with high expectations of itself. American [and Japanese] nationalism
need not merely be a love of what our country has been (though it is that), but canat the same time also be a love of what our country ought to be—a love of theideal that we have always held out before ourselves as the American [or Japanese]possibility, even if we have never fully realized it.17
In Abe’s kind of nationalism, we see a similar rejection of statism (kokkashugi) which ran
roughshod over Japan’s intermediary institutions in the wartime years. But we also find arejection of narrow nationalism (minzokushugi) that remains frozen in a nostalgia for the
past and does not build on the individualism that postwar Japan shares with America.
The key challenge for both Levin and Abe is how to articulate a moral vision that accepts“expressive individualism” without surrendering a sense of responsibility to the broader
national people (kokumin).
Yoram Hazony directly addresses the moral vision of nationalism in his book, The Virtueof Nationalism (2018). Hazony, president of the Herzl Institute think tank in Jerusalem,
is an Israeli citizen, not an American. But insofar as he has become a mainstay of theAmerican right we can consider him broadly as part of these new approaches to
American nationalism. For example Michael Anton, one of Trump’s senior advisers,
drew on Hazony’s vision of nationalism in formulating what Anton described as “theTrump doctrine” in foreign affairs. And Hazony’s American organization, the Edmund
Burke Foundation, sponsored a conference in 2019 that featured speeches from Senator
Josh Hawley, Tucker Carlson, Peter Thiel, and then-National Security Adviser John
Bolton—all important leaders in this new appreciation of nationalism in America.

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Clearly, Hazony is an important influence on American thinking about nationalism,
especially among conservatives.
One of the salient characteristics of Hazony’s theory of nationalism is his avoidance ofthe previous distinction between civic and ethnic nationalisms in favor of a sense of thenation as a composite of tribes. His view of the nation is thus somewhere between the
civic and ethnic models, with an implicit tendency in favor of the old ethnic nation
model. However, he does allow for new tribes to merge with the dominant old tribe,
giving his theory of the nation much of the assimilationist character of the civic nation
without its individualism. But his main point transcends the ethnic and civic distinction
in favor of an emphasis on the communal basis of a true nation. A nation, he writes, “is aform of community, a human collective recognizing itself as distinct from other humancollectives . . . and when the tribes of a nation unite to establish a national state, theybring to this state the familiar and distinctive character of the nation, its language, laws,
and religious traditions, its past history of anguish and triumph.”18
To clarify the distinctiveness of the nation, Hazony juxtaposes it with empire.
Nationalism properly understood is the polar opposite of imperialism, as imperialism isthe effort by one State to eradicate the independence of other nations and national States.
Imperialism ultimately tends toward the establishment of one universal standard ofculture, legality, and polity for the entire world; in contrast, nationalism is the
manifestation of a type of relativism that allows for a range of diverse cultural, legal andpolitical institutions. Herein lies the “virtue” of nationalism, its protection of thoseparticular communities in which people find their deepest meaning and loyalties.
Hazony helps explain what is at stake in Abe’s “escape from the postwar regime.” The
postwar Japanese regime is very much a product of what Hazony describes as
imperialism, as the postwar pax Americana’s purpose is “to remove decision-making
from the hands of independent national governments and place it in the hands ofinternational governments or bodies.”19 When Abe calls for Japan to escape from thepostwar regime, he is not preparing for a return to the militarism of Imperial Japan but
merely seeking liberation from the imperial order of contemporary globalist forces thatdeny Japan its own full autonomy. This is neither an attack on America nor on China. It
is merely an effort to claim what Hazony sees as the right of all peoples: a community of
their own that represents their own historical and cultural traditions. And to pursue one’s
own nationalism is not hatred, Hazony concludes, or at least not any worse a form of
hatred than one finds among advocates of “the old imperialist hatred of the different anddiverse.”20 Thus he points out today that those who wish “to chart an independent coursethat is their own. . . [who are] holdouts against universal liberalism are to be found thesedays in America and Britain; in France, the Netherlands, and Denmark; in Czechia,
Poland, Hungary, and Greece; in India and Japan.”21 So, now we know why Abe is sooften reviled as a dangerous nationalist. His nationalism, like many other emerging
nationalisms around the world, is directed against the imperialism of the postwar
globalist world order.
An even more recent study on nationalism that overlaps with key elements on Abe’s
nationalism is R. R. Reno, Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism, and the9Future of the West (2019). In terms strikingly reminiscent of Abe’s call for “escapefrom the postwar regime,” Reno opens his study of contemporary American nationalismwith a critical reflection on “the postwar consensus” and a clarion call to overturn that
postwar consensus. The postwar consensus began with a reflection on the nationalist
forces that America had just prevailed over in the Second World War, and in the laterwords of President George H.W. Bush, it had declared a new vision, “a world of open
borders, open trade, and most importantly, open minds.”22 In place of what Reno calls“the strong gods” of nationalism and other forces that draw men’s love and devotion, thepostwar consensus substituted the “weak gods” of openness, diversity, a weaking ofidentity and a general emphasis on the imperative of being “anti” (eg., anti-imperialism,
anti-fascism, anti-racism, etc.). Reno himself recognizes the legitimate rejection ofimperialism, fascism and racism (as does Abe), but he also shows how an excessiveemphasis on a negative, critical stance has weakened the strong gods that draw on a
person’s love and commitment: this anti-ism pulls apart the fabrics that unite us to one
another in a social whole.
I find striking parallels here with what Abe rejects in “the postwar regime.” When Reno
notes that “a society lives on answers, not merely questions; convictions, not simply
opinions”,23 I hear Abe’s voice in the background. As I do when Reno writes that “if it is‘nationalist’ to cherish self-government, then we should be nationalists. The strong godof self-government and sovereignty, which calls upon us to use our freedom and reason,is ennobling.”24 And especially when Reno invokes sports (as Abe did), to point out that“when seventy thousand football fans rise for the national anthem, their reverence isrepaid with pride—pride in their country.”25 Reno’s book shows how the recent turn tonationalism and populism around the word is a reckoning with a postwar regime thatenshrined the atomized individual against the social whole, that put globalism ahead of
the nation, and that left us all the more empty and hungry for meaning and purpose
beyond our selves.
One last example from current American advocates for nationalism is Rich Lowry’s
book, The Case for Nationalism: How It Made Us Powerful, United and Free (2019).
As editor of the National Review, Lowry represents an important voice in the American
conservative movement. His book connects the growing social and cultural interest innationalism to recent American political events, particularly President Trump and his
embrace of nationalism in 2018. His argument that Trump’s nationalism is notparticularly radical might be applied directly to Abe’s nationalism. And his rejection of
the charge that nationalists are racists as nothing but a smear might also be applied toAbe’s critics who have smeared Abe’s nationalism in similar terms. But there is one
argument in particular that Lowry makes that is significant for the current direction ofnationalism, both in America and in Japan. He too rejects the distinction between civic
nationalism and ethnic nationalism, arguing that “no nation has ever been entirely
civic.”26 Nor does he embrace ethnic nationalism. Lowry praises the contributions to
American culture made by African-Americans and he encourages intermarriage among
different racial and ethnic groups in America to help forge “one nation, one people.” For
Lowry, nationalism is ultimately neither civic nor ethnic but a cultural bond amongpeople who see themselves as part of the same national community. And this cultural

10bond is reinforced by rites and symbols, among which he emphasizes Thanksgiving Day.
I could not help but think of the role of Yasukuni Shrine in reinforcing Japanese cultural
nationalism and the controversy over Abe’s refraining from visiting Yasukuni after his
first visit. Japan too needs its rites and symbols to unite its people as a nation.
The rejection of the distinction between civic and ethnic nationalism that we found above(especially in Lowry but also in Levin and Hazony) is also found in contemporary
Japanese writing on nationalism. The current trend among Japanese scholars ofnationalism is to drop the traditional language of minzokushugi (ethnic nationalism) andkokuminshugi (civic nationalism) in favor of the English loan word nashonarizumu.
There are many reasons for this shift, I believe. But fundamentally it reflects a growing
acceptance of Tanaka Kōtarō’s conclusion: that minzoku identity is not reprobate, nordoes it have to lead to an exclusive minzokushugi; and the state is not morally corrupt by
its nature but merely a tool that the nation can use for good or ill. Tanaka reminds us thatthe problems nationalism raises are not exhausted by social theories of civic or ethnic
nationalism but go deeper into the heart of identity itself.
One important Japanese work on nationalism that thinks through and ultimately beyond
this distinction between minzokushugi and kokuminshugi is Senzaki Akinaka’s 2013
Nashonarizumu no fukken (“Restoring Nationalism”). Senzaki returns to the contributions
to Japanese nationalism of prewar intellectuals like Fukuzawa Yukichi, Nakae Chōmin
and Watsuji Tetsurō to illustrate the healthy function of nationalism, both as a social
theory and as an understanding of the proper role of the state. Senzaki points to several
major misunderstandings that still shape much of the discourse on nationalism. Firstly,
nationalism is equated with totalitarianism and within this reduction one finds various
allergic reactions to the State.27 Secondly, nationalism is equated with religion,
specifically the religion of the modern Gesellschaft society that rejects an earlier
premodern religion as mere irrationality. The “irrational” premodern religion had createdlines of continuity between ancestors and their descendants, but these lines of continuity
were severed by the discontinuous claims of modern Gesellschaft society. To fill thoseneeds for comfort, especially in the face of inevitable death, modern society replaced
premodern religion with the concept of kokumin.28 Notice that the form of nationemphasized in bourgeois Gesellschaft society is that of kokumin, the modern, civic formof nationalism that Marxists denounce as bourgeois, not the minzoku concept of nationthat is implicitly invoked in the imagined premodern religious community of continuity.
And of course since the kokumin is a concept that invested the national people in the State(kokka), both State and religion are reduced to mere illusions of collectivity 「共同幻想」 that must be rejected in the interests of the health of the individual. Or, as Senzaki
concludes succinctly, for adherents to this theory like Yoshimoto Takaaki and Karatani
Kōjin, the State is merely a burden.29 Thirdly, nationalism is democracy. This third viewis still mistaken in certain respects, but in contrast to the previous two erroneous views ofnationalism, it sees nationalism not in a negative light but in a positive light. Yet, like theother two erroneous views, it draws on a modern rupture, emphasizing at times the Meiji
Freedom and People’s Rights Movement 「自由民権運動」as a populist movement orespecially as reflected in and defined by the later, and supposedly democratic, postwar
Japanese society. Yet, in either case, in this theory one finds more populism than

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nationalism, a populism that situates itself with the people below （民衆＝「下からの」）versus authority (the State) as the power from above （権力＝「上からの」）.30 In any event, as Senzaki powerfully shows, this “democracy” frequently leads
not to nationalism per se but to a populist desire for a dictator to address the people’s
disappointments with the inequalities they experience in their daily lives. Here, there isconsiderable overlap with Reno’s “postwar consensus,” although there also are some
important differences between the two theories of nationalism.
Ultimately, Senzaki argues for an understanding of nationalism that connects people toplace and to ancestors, a framework for understanding life and for making death
meaningful (not merely in terms of wartime deaths as sacrifice for the State or theemperor, but more universally as death within and for a community of the living). The
nation draws lines of continuity with those who went before as well as with those whowill come after. Senzaki finds this community of the living, the dead and the not yetborn invested in Yanagida Kunio’s notion of “the enduring folk” （常民). To avoid
confusing this argument with the equation of nationalism and religion that Senzaki
criticized, one must observe the important distinction he makes in framing this not as areligion (宗教) but simply as a matter of faith (信仰).31 For Senzaki, “religion” refers toan organized institutionalization of faith that was introduced with individualistic modern
society, whereas “faith” is less institutional and thus is able to establish stronger lines ofcontinuity with the national folk who lived in pre-modern times, who live today, and who
will live in the future. There are certainly elements of Senzaki’s theory of nationalismthat may be limited by particular characteristics of Japanese culture and society. But I
also find an overriding commonality with the American theories of nationalism outlined
above—especially in promoting nationalism as the antidote to a range of social
dysfunctionalities that, if not unique to the postwar period, have certainly grown worse
under the postwar regime of open borders, globalism and atomistic individualism.

3. The Hermeneutics of Continuity in the Nationalism in Post-Abe Japan andPost-Trump America
We have seen above that nationalism, particularly a populist, communitarian nationalismthat seeks to protect the distinctive identity and interests of the nation against globalism,is growing around the world. In Japan, this kind of nationalism was and is frequently
associated with Abe Shinzō and those close to him. But it is hardly “Abe’s nationalism.”
Rather, Abe was an extraordinary national leader who recognized the importance of thisdemocratic nationalism and was able to respond to it with multiple effective policies
while in office. Whether or not Abe returns to office, this nationalism will continue to bea force to be reckoned with.
To grasp what is at stake in the future of nationalism in Japan, I think it is useful to draw
on the distinction between a hermeneutics of discontinuity and a hermeneutics ofcontinuity. Pope Benedict XVI introduced this distinction in 2005 while discussing thecorrect understanding of the Second Vatican Council. He rejected what he called a12“hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture” that was quite popular in the media andinstead advocated a “hermeneutics of reform in continuity” as the proper way tounderstand Vatican II.32 Pope Benedict’s distinction between a “hermeneutics of
discontinuity” and a “hermeneutics of continuity” can be helpful in understanding
contemporary nationalism in Japan. Postwar Japan was no less a divisive moment inJapanese history than the Second Vatican Council was for Catholics. Similarly, we findthat many, especially in the media, have adopted a hermeneutics of discontinuity andrupture in their interpretation of the postwar period. According to this hermeneutics of
discontinuity, postwar Japan marked a radical break with the politics, culture and ideas of
the wartime period, ushering in a new era of individualism and democracy. Some evengo so far as to outline a new, pacifist Japanese nationalism for the postwar period, one
anchored in the Yoshida Doctrine of economism and a rejection of nuclear arms. The
problem for those who seek to interpret Japanese nationalism from within thishermeneutic of discontinuity is the inevitable continuity with prewar Japanese identity in
any imagination of the Japanese nation. At the same time, the problem for those who
seek to interpret Japanese nationalism from a hermeneutic of continuity is the obvious
changes in Japanese culture and society that have demonstrably taken place since theAmerican Occupation. Both the hermeneutic of discontinuity and the hermeneutic ofcontinuity face challenges in articulating a Japanese nationalism in the contemporary
moment.
It has become abundantly clear, however, that it is the hermeneutics of discontinuity thatis the more inadequate theory for democratic nationalism in Japan today. The main
reason is the rise of an aggressive, communist China. When China was seen as either
weak or benign, it was easy for Japanese leftists to portray Japan as a pacifist nation
whose greatest threat was the United States and its wars, particularly in Korea andVietnam. At that time, anti-Western nationalism in Japan could be mobilized inmovements such as the US-Japan Security Treaty revision protests, and China was
attractive as a counterweight to American hegemony in Japan and in the region. In thisview, postwar Japanese nationalism was a pacifist nationalism that stood in sharp
discontinuity with the militarism of imperial Japan. Now, however, that option of apacifist Japan is no longer feasible (if it ever was). It is indisputable that the greatest
threat to peace and autonomy in the region comes, not from the United States, but froman increasingly militarized communist China. In this context, the hermeneutics ofcontinuity takes on renewed significance for Japanese nationalism. It offers an historicallink to the origins of democratic nationalism in the Meiji period, as we saw above inSenzaki’s understanding of Japanese nationalism. And the hermeneutics of continuity
has implications for the ongoing controversy over the role of Yasukuni Shrine in any
healthy nationalism. What do the Japanese people owe to their ancestors who made theultimate sacrifice for their nation? What is the responsibility of their politicalrepresentatives, especially the Prime Minister, in this matter?
In this context, we cannot overlook the Meiji period’s keywords, fukoku kyōhei. Notethat Meiji leaders were wise to link “rich nation” with “strong military.” Thehermeneutics of discontinuity of postwar Japan sought to drive a wedge between thesetwo principles, presuming Japan could become wealthy through economic relations (even13with communist China) without any need for a strong military. Perhaps the greatest task
facing Japanese nationalism today is to work, through “the hermeneutics of reform incontinuity” with its own history, to strengthen both Japan’s economy and its military andthereby serve the interests of the Japanese people. A good example is Prime Minister
Abe’s elevating the Defense Agency to the cabinet level as the Ministry of Defense in2006. On that score, Abe has already established a remarkable historical legacy ofstrengthening Japanese nationalism through this hermeneutic of reform in continuity. But
there is still much left to do.
NOTES
1

山際澄夫著、「安倍首相とともに「保守政治」も去りぬ」『Hanada』(Nov.
2020), p. 23. 「安倍政権で政局は安定し、アベノミクスによって株価は上がり雇用は拡大した。平和安全法制によって日米同盟が強化されたように見える。だが、保守勢力が最も安倍政権に期待した「戦後レジームからの脱却」、つまり、「日本は侵略国家、悪い国」という東京裁判史観の呪縛から脱して、憲法も改正し、自分の国は自分の手で守る国になる、という安倍政治の核心部分ではまるで結果を出せていないのである。」
2

山際澄夫, p.23. 「安倍首相とともに保守政治も去りぬ」
櫻井よしこ, 「戦略家、安倍晋三獅子奮迅の働き」『Hanada』(Nov.2020), p.
52. 「しかしいつまでも、安倍総理が敷いてくれたレール, 財産に甘えてばかりもいられませ3ん。国民も学び続けて、国民全体で次なる安倍晋三を発掘し、育てていくという気迫が大事です。」
4

牧原徳夫著, 『客分と国民のあいだ：近代民衆の政治意識』（吉川弘文館,
1998）, p. 11. 「『学問のすすめ』は日本における国民主義の最初の本格的著作だった.」5
福沢諭吉著『学問のすゝめ』岩波文庫, p. 41. 「日本にはただ政府ありて未だ国民あらずと言うも可なり。」
6

Rikki Kersten, Democracy in Postwar Japan: Maruyama Masao and the Search forAutonomy (London & New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 149.
7
An interesting comparison with how Abe was treated is how the media also excoriatedTrump as a dangerous nationalist. See Rich Lowry, The Case for Nationalism: How It
Made Us Powerful, United, and Free (Broadside Books, 2019), pp. 3-10.
8安倍晋三著、『新しい国へ』(文藝春秋, 2013), p. 102. 「ナショナリズムは、いろ
いろな言葉に訳されるが、それをあえて、民族主義と訳すれば、キャシー・フリーマンは、旗を二つ掲げることで、自分の中で分裂するナショナリズムに折り合いをつけようとしていたことになる。」
9

安倍晋三著、『新しい国へ』 p. 254.

「こうして日本が抱える課題を列挙してみると、拉致問題のみならず、領土問題、日米関係、あるいは TPP のような経済問題でさえ、その根っこはひとつのように思えます。すなわち日本国民の生命と財産及び日本の領土は、日本国政府
が自らの手で守るという明確な意識のないまま、問題を先送りにし、経済的豊かさを享受してきたツケではないでしょうか。まさに「戦後レジームからの脱却」が日本にとって最大のテーマであることは、私が前回総理を務めていた五年前と何も変わっていないのです。
今回の総選挙で自民党は「日本を、取り戻す。」というスローガンを掲げています。
これは単に民主党政権から日本を取り戻すという意味ではありません。敢えて言うな
ら、これは戦後の歴史から、日本という国を日本国民の手に取り戻す戦いであります。

14

10

山際澄夫,p.23. 「「アイヌ新法」や移民法（入管法改正）などの強行可決を見て、これが保守政権なら保守の支持などやめたいと痛切に思ったほどだ。」
11

田中耕太郎著、「第三章：法の概念と民族の概念」『世界法の理論』第一巻、（岩波書店、1932）, pp. 154-270.
12
田中耕太郎著、『世界法の理論』第一巻, p. 265.「各民族は其の特性を有し、其の特性に従い人類文化の一部を分担し、此れに貢献する使命を有している。此の貴き使命を遂行するに妨げとならぬ範囲内に於て人間が自己の所属する民族に対し愛着を有することは正当視せられなければならぬのみならず、斯くの如き愛着を有することは家族に対する其れの如く自然の命
令であり、且つ人間の自己の道徳的完成上必要の条件である。」
13

I discuss this aspect of Tanaka’s thought on national identity in more depth in “State
and Nation in Twentieth-Century Japan: Toward an Interpretive Framework,” Japan
Forum 23:4 (2011): 531-551; and in Tanaka Kōtarō and World Law: Rethinking the
Natural Law Outside the West (PalgraveMacmillan, 2019)14第一条「。。。アイヌの人々が民族としての誇りを持って生活することができ、及びその誇りが尊重される社会の実現を図り、もって全ての国民が相互に人格と個性を尊重し合いながら共生する社会の実現に資することを目的とする.」

https://elaws.e-gov.go.jp/document?lawid=431AC0000000016. Accessed March 10,2021.
15
Yuval Levin, The Fractured Republic: Renewing America’s Social Contract in theAge of Individualism (Basic Books, 2016), p. 148.
16
Levin, The Fractured Republic, p. 146.
17
Levin, The Fractured Republic, p. 214.
18
Yoram Hazony, The Virtue of Nationalism (Basic Books, 2018), pp. 100-101.
19
Hazony, The Virtue of Nationalism, p. 4
20
Hazony, The Virtue of Nationalism, p. 223.
21
Hazony, The Virtue of Nationalism, p. 222.
22
President George H.W. Bush, in an address to the United Nations General Assembly(October 1, 1990); cited in R.R. Reno, Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism,
Populism, and the Future of the West (Regnery Gateway, 2019), p. 2.
23
Reno, Return of the Strong Gods, p. 95.
24
Reno, Return of the Strong Gods, p. 154.
25
Reno, Return of the Strong Gods, p. 155.
26
Lowry, The Case for Nationalism, p. 18.
27
先崎彰容著 『ナショナリズムの復権』（ちくま新書 2013）, p. 18.
28
先崎, p. 22.
29
先崎, p. 24. 『国家は「負担」以外の何ものでもない』
30
先崎, p. 26.
31
先崎, p. 144, p. 151.
32
Benedict XVI, “Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia Offering
Them His Christmas Greetings,” December 22 2005.
http://www.vatican.va/content/benedictxvi/en/speeches/2005/december/documents/hf_ben_xvi_spe_20051222_romancuria.html