Must the Sun Set in the West? : Japan’s Stunted Democracy and the American Liberal Hegemony

How an elitist concept of democracy promoted by the American political and academic establishments constrained Japan’s political development Japan’s historic pursuit of a full membership in “the West” may finally be close to fruition—even as the value of such membership seems greatly diminished. In Must the Sun Set in the West?, Koichi Nakano argues that, despite the common understanding that postwar Japan became a democracy thanks to the benevolent patronage of the United States, American interference actually stunted Japanese democracy. Tracing the interplay between American liberal hegemonic projection in East Asia and Japan’s efforts to achieve full-fledged Western status, Nakano examines the racist (and sexist) roots of the elitist theory of democracy propagated by the American political and academic establishments and its impact on postwar Japan. Nakano traces the evolution of the elitist project through its various stages—liberal-internationalist “race development,” anticommunist/liberal “modernization theory,” and neoliberal-globalist “democracy assistance.” He argues that Japan, by virtue of its ambiguous position as almost Western (but not really Western), offers a unique vantage point for analyzing the Western hegemonic strategy. He first examines the encounter between American hegemonic projection and Japan’s imperialist modernization before World War II, when the American elite granted Japan an “honorary white” status. He then turns to the postwar period, examining the ways that democracy in Japan collided with the American hegemonic agenda. By revisiting the white supremacist roots of the elitist theory that equates democracy with an elite-pluralist procedure to create strong leadership—which, he points out, is still dominant in political science today—Nakano sheds light on the hidden liberal provenance of contemporary democratic backsliding.