The Military and the Government in Japan

1941 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 528-539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chitoshi Yanaga

After fifty years of experimentation in constitutional government, Japan finds herself today on the threshold of a new era of revolutionary changes. For the greater part of the past half-century, the Japanese political system functioned well. But in recent years many Western features have been found rather awkward and ill-fitting, if not actually obstructive. For some time now, the nation has been discarding many of the foreign trappings which once served so well, but are no longer worth preserving. This casting-off process has been gaining momentum steadily since 1933 and was greatly accelerated by the voluntary liquidation of political parties in July and August, 1940. Thus, a political renovation of a scope heretofore unknown is now in full swing with a new national structure rapidly taking form to meet the dynamic changes in all phases of the Empire's national life.

2021 ◽  
pp. 003802292110510
Author(s):  
Hassan Javid

Historically, despite the tremendous influence exerted by Islam on public life, religious parties and organisations have historically failed to do well at the ballot box, receiving an average of only 6% of votes cast in elections since the 1980s. Focusing on the case of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a new Barelvi political party and social movement that has campaigned on the emotive issue of blasphemy since being formed in 2015, this article argues that the clientelistic, patronage-based nature of democratic politics in Punjab, coupled with factionalism and competition within the religious right, continues to play a role in limiting the electoral prospects of religious parties. Nonetheless, as was seen in the General Elections of 2018 in which the TLP outperformed expectations, there are particular circumstances in which the religious parties are able to make electoral breakthroughs. While the TLP was able to make effective use of populist rhetoric to garner some genuine support for itself, this article argues that the organisations sustained campaign of protests over the issue of blasphemy fed into broader efforts by the military establishment and opposition political parties to destabilise and weaken the government of the PML-N prior to the 2018 elections.


2005 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-471
Author(s):  
David G. Haglund

This article explores changes in the international political significance of "strategic minerals" over the past half-century. The method of analysis is comparative historical, or "diachronic", and the major issues examined are: 1) minerals as a cause of international conflict; 2) minerals as a factor contributing to the military potential of states; and 3) the question of mineral scarcity. In addition to the above issues, the author analyzes two central concepts, "geopolitics" and "strategic minerals" . He concludes that while it does make sense to speak of a "new geopolitics of Minerals" in the post-1973 era, there are nevertheless important ways in which recent strategic-minerals issues resemble those of the earlier period under examination, the interwar years (and, in particular, the 1930s). What does not seem to have changed in respect of strategic minerals since the 1930 s is that access to them continues ultimately to be a function of political processes, and therefore the access question remains what it was, a matter of geopolitical concern. Where there have been differences in the relevance of strategic minerals, these have mainly consisted in: 1) the declining importance of minerals as a major contributory factor in the breakdown of world order; 2) the lessening of what had formerly been a deterministic equation between mineral possession and military potential; and 3) the increased salience in the post-1973 era of the perception that access will be affected by the growing scarcity of minerals, whether due to the actual depletion of reserves or politically induced supply disruptions.


Subject Thailand's long-delayed election. Significance More than 40 new political parties have been registered in Thailand since March 2, and established parties will be allowed to begin registering members on April 1, as Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and the military-led National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) begin a process of preparing for a long-delayed general election. The 2017 constitution initiated by the NCPO allows the (to be re-established) House of Representatives to select an ‘outsider’ as prime minister if it is unable to decide on a party-affiliated figure. Impacts Persistent election delays will not affect Thailand’s current economic recovery. Despite mounting political pressure on the government to commit to a poll, anti-government protests will not grow. Improving relations with the United States could insulate the government from EU pressure on delayed elections.


Author(s):  
John Kenneth Galbraith

This chapter examines the role of the military in the community of contentment. During the past half century, Communism was considered the most obtrusive threat to contentment. The perception that the military was a bulwark against Communism was the most significant support to the deeply embedded position of the military establishment in the culture of contentment. Fear of Communism was deep and fundamental in the psyche of the contented. Imperiled freedom, loss of liberty, was much cited; especially acute was the threat to private property. The chapter considers how the fear of Communism gave rise to a major development in the military power as that existed in the political economy of contentment: a further enormous increase in military and defense spending as the constituency of contentment gained full power in the 1980s—the arms buildup under Ronald Reagan.


2002 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 57-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
F.J. van der Merwe ◽  
J. Martin

SummaryThe history and development of the four Southern African horse breeds, i.e. Basutho Pony, Nooitgedacht, South African (SA) Boerperd and Cape Boerperd, are traced from their common ancestor, the Cape Horse, to the present day. Recent blood-typing studies of the first three have shown them to be closer related to each other than to any other world breed. At the beginning of the twentieth century the Southern African horse industry was devastated after the Anglo Boer War (1899–1902). Indiscriminate crossbreeding and intentional importation of other specialized breeds led to the near extinction of the descendants of the Cape Horse in South Africa. Fortunately, the efforts of the Government Department of Agriculture and a number of private breeders to identify, conserve and develop the then existing genetic material over the past half century, resulted in the existence today of three small, but viable, registered breeds of locally adapted and versatile horses viz. Nooitgedacht, SA Boerperd and Cape Boerperd. The recent history and apparent present situation of the Basutho Pony in the neighbouring country of Lesotho was also described.


2018 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 390-417 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Ali Kadivar

The “elitist approach” to democratization contends that “democratic regimes that last have seldom, if ever, been instituted by mass popular actors” (Huntington 1984:212). This article subjects this observation to empirical scrutiny using statistical analyses of new democracies over the past half-century and a case study. Contrary to the elitist approach, I argue that new democracies growing out of mass mobilization are more likely to survive than are new democracies that were born amid quiescence. Survival analysis of 112 young democracies in 80 different countries based on original data shows that the longer the mobilization, the more likely the ensuing democracy is to survive. I use a case study of South Africa to investigate the mechanisms. I argue that sustained unarmed uprisings have generated the longest-lasting new democracies—largely because they are forced to develop an organizational structure, which provides a leadership cadre for the new regime, forges links between the government and society, and strengthens checks on the power of the post-transition government.


2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhiqing Liu

AbstractIn 1964, both Gell-Mann and Zweig proposed the famous Quark Model in particle physics, which tells us hadrons are built of three quarks (baryons) or quark anti-quark pair (mesons). However, the theory of strong interaction—QCD—allows the existing of hadrons beyond the conventional baryon and meson picture. These new hadron states are called exotic hadrons, and have been searched for over the past half century. In this review, I will introduce you the discovery of a new particle called Zc(3900), which is considered as the first convincing four-quark particle. The observation of four-quark matter gains great interest in particle physics, and triggered subsequent intensive study of exotic hadrons, which brings us to a new era of hadron spectroscopy and refreshes our knowledge about the hadronic matter in our universe.


1993 ◽  
Vol 133 ◽  
pp. 56-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce J. Dickson

Few political parties have the opportunity to make a fresh start in a new location. An organization is rarely able to leave the environment in which its lessons are learned and apply them in a new one. However, the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) encountered this situation after its defeat on the Chinese mainland and retreat to Taiwan. From 1950 to 1952, the KMT underwent a thorough organizational restructuring. The result was a renewal of its Leninist origins from the previous reorganization in 1924. During 1950–52, the KMT created a network of Party cells throughout the government, military and society to which each Party member had to belong. The principles of democratic centralism, ideology as guide to policy, hierarchical authority, and Party authority over the government bureaucracy and the military were reasserted.


Author(s):  
Simon A. Waldman ◽  
Emre Caliskan

This chapter highlights how, in many respects, the military (MGK) was the author of its own decline, a result of infighting and internal and external plots and intrigue. By the AKP’s second term, tensions arose within the military’s lower officer ranks about how to deal with what they considered to be the AKP’s challenge to the secular nature of the state. This created disarray within the ranks while at the same time spurious conspiracies to overthrow the government emerged, leading to a purge within the military’s officer class. By the time the AKP entered its third term in office, the military was a spent force in Turkish politics ushering in a new era in the political and cultural dynamics of the country.


Author(s):  
Louis Fisher

This article discusses the concept of state secrets privilege which is designed to prevent private litigants from gaining access to agency documents sought in cases involving National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance, extraordinary rendition, and other intelligence programs. Before the Reynolds case, the Supreme Court recognized the state secrets privilege. Over the past half century, federal judges gave “deference” to the executive claims on sensitivity and confidentiality of agency records without ever looking at the disputed document. However in 1953, the Supreme Court was misled by the government. Since then, there has been an interest in having Congress enact legislation to assure greater independence for the federal judiciary and provide a more even playing field for private litigants.


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