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In this paper I discuss the work of Nagao Nishikawa, an important Japanese social theorist whose "theory of the nation-state" (kokuminkokkaron) has greatly influenced recent debates on identity and culture in Japan. Nishikawa's interpretation focuses on nation-state formation in Japan since the Meiji Period (1868-1912) and it follows a more general line of contemporary social thought that has tried to question traditional views of Japan as a homogeneous society. In contrast, Nishikawa's argument stresses the conflicts that are pervasive in cultural practices in Japan. Moreover, he points to the need to think of Japan not as an isolated unit, but rather as part of a wider system in which the relations between Japanese society and the rest of the world play a crucial role in revealing a more complex reality. However, despite allowing for illuminating new perspectives, this interpretation also has its own difficulties and limitations, especially in regard to its normative consequences, which remain controversial. I conclude this article with a discussion of some of these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the new (2013) Japan's National Security Strategy and its relationship with the actual changes in the regional and global strategic landscape. The connections between the new Japanese perspectives on the subject and the recent U.S decision to focus its military Power in the Asia Pacific region will be specially stressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tension between nostalgia and innovation is uniquely manifested in Olivier Messiaen's Gagaku, the fourth movement of his 1962 composition Sept Haikai. Messiaen's religiosity represented a form of nostalgia to the intellectual French Avant-Garde. Messiaen considers the sense of ritual and stasis as musical expressions of sacredness. By comparing the structure of Messiaen's Gagaku (analyzed in the light of his writings about his compositional methods) and that of ancient Japanese gagaku court music, this paper will show how this sense of ritual and stasis constitutes the aesthetic common ground existing independently in both forms. The existence of common elements between a non-western "source" and the western composition inspired by that source provides the necessary condition for the transformation of nostalgia into innovation. The concept of écriture plays an important role in the past/future dialectic of this transformation, causing structure and style to differ based on the principle of non-imitation and asserting itself as the shaping element that makes Gagaku a piece of distinctly French music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to increase the trading volume with Latin America, Japan had signed trade agreements with major local economies. However there is a lack of studies regarding the trading flow between those two regions. This paper has the main objective to estimate a cointegration relation between Japan and the four biggest economies in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico, by the most traditional Johansen procedure and the Lütkepohl's which allows to deal with structural breaks. Regarding Johansen main results, only the Argentinian trading flows are cointegrated, however by Lütkepohl approach, the Brazilian and the Chilean imports equation are also cointegrated. As the estimated structural break is related to main monetary events in Argentina and Brazil this fact increases the significance of those results and the importance to deal with these break for international trade econometric modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]