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Given the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, Japan is at a major point to reevaluate its policies on the public communication of science. However, the government's self-reflection on their measures and policies of science communication has been inadequate. This study reviewed and analyzed descriptions of science-related public communication in the successive Japanese white papers on science and technology (S&T) from 1958 to 2015 with quantitative-qualitative hybrid approaches. Traditional enlightenment activities have always been given higher priority, even after the S&T Basic Plan aimed at two-way science communication, and have used such justifications as "the shying-away of young people from S&T," "accountability for research investment," and "problem-solving on issues related to S&T and society," without considering the reality of science communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public transport providers often attempt to prevent passenger behaviour they consider dangerous, deviant, or otherwise undesirable through media technologies such as posters, signage, and overhead announcements. This paper explores the rationale of such mediated regulatory endeavours by taking up the example of 'manner improvement' poster campaigns by urban rail providers in Tokyo. Based on expert interviews with individuals involved in the production of poster campaigns and analysis of industry documents, it examines the motives and considerations guiding company interventions into passengers' everyday mobility practices. While previous scholarship has largely viewed such initiatives as a form of social control, this paper interprets manner improvement efforts as a customer service strategy. The paper examines posters' content, design, and limitations to argue that manner improvement efforts by urban transport providers are not primarily concerned with disciplining passengers but satisfying customer sensibilities. Enquiring into transit etiquette posters from the perspective of transport and design companies involved in creating them, this paper presents a novel contribution to the study of urban mobilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union-Japan political and international development dialogue is resurging through the Strategic Partnership Agreement recently agreed between the two actors. The current paper argues that in order for this agreement to deliver on its promises, the EU and Japan need to build on their similarities, but more importantly on their differences and lessons learnt through their distinct international experiences. While common values and norms have helped them to agree on such document, building on their differences will help both actors to make this bilateral dialogue more productive and strategic. Through the theoretical lenses of policy entrepreneurship used to consolidate knowledge for development on horizontal cooperation, the paper questions how sharing their experiences as international donors can be of strategic relevance for both the EU and Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks if there is deficiency of investment in people in Japan. To answer this question we examine comparative and historical data, as well as the reasons behind the data. We then look at public policies of recent administrations, particularly the Kishida administration, since one of its core policy agendas is 'investment in people'. We find that there is a deficiency of investment in people, by governments, companies and people themselves, for a variety of reasons, and that the Kishida administration has to date only proposed temporary measures without long term solutions. The paper concludes with policy implications and some proposals for additional action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to expectations that the greater visibility of aid increases the donor's prestige, this paper examines why certain donor countries may seek to render their aid programs invisible. As the case of Japan's early Triangular Development Cooperation (TDC) in Southeast Asia demonstrates, donors at times seek to conceal their presence to better secure their national interests. By approaching this (in-)visibility puzzle through the focus on its politics, this study highlights the complexity of donors' motivations in selectively activating (in-)visibility in TDC. Via a historicised account of Japan's post-war aid/economic cooperation relationship with Southeast Asia, the paper finds how the triangular mechanism allowed Japan and Thailand as an intermediary to selectively render their presence in-/visible to shun hostile sentiments against them in order to pursue their respective diplomatic goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'China threat' has been identified as an important driver of Japan's security agenda and discourse. The threat posed by China has been discussed either as a given factor determining the trajectory of Tokyo's security approach, as a product of identity construction, or as an expression of securitizing processes that facilitate institutional and policy change. This paper contributes to this debate by offering an alternative explanation of the process through which the Abe government constructed China as a threat. Building on securitization theory, the paper examines the modes and strategies employed by the Abe Administration to successfully securitize China. The paper argues that, while Beijing was labeled a 'concern' rather than an 'existential threat,' it was still securitized through a process of securitization that involves an association with those domains in which China engages assertively, namely the maritime commons. The paper suggests calling this type of securitizing pattern 'transversal securitization' and explores how this indirect strategy allowed the Abe government to pragmatically pursue its objectives both domestically and at the international level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michael Rush sheds light on the Japanese 'Nordic Turn' in the family policy, including a father-friendly parental leave scheme after the 2000s in his work published in 2015. Despite this and the Japanese Government's apparent desire to encourage fathers to take parental leave, the policy does not seem effective as in Nordic countries. This paper examines what makes Japan's statutory parental leave scheme difficult to work like the ones in Nordic countries by analyzing the process of the amendments of the leave scheme after the 2014 amendment. The study pays particular attention to the views expressed by the various actors involved in the law-making process on the issue of the inconsistency between bonus months, which is a father quota, and the special extension of parental leave in case of no childcare place, and how this was reflected in the final bill. The paper reveals that the process was not confined to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare but was heavily influenced by the work of the Cabinet Office, project teams of the ruling party, and private groups promoting work-life balance measures. Partly because of this, the Japanese parental leave system has diverged significantly from the Nordic and German systems to which it was originally referred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the admissions practices of an 'Elite Traditional International School' (ETIS) in a large city in Japan. The school is seeing falling enrolment from its traditional clients e.g.'transnational capitalist class' families working for Embassies and its alumnus, whilst attracting an emergent aspiring locally-based body of parents representative of a 'global middle class' likely seeking advantages, and a new, distinct identity. The resultant tension, between dealing with market-led change (reflecting the reality) and trying to maintain and protect legitimacy as an ideologically driven institution serving the privileged 'international community' (reflecting the vision), creates a platform (the nomos) for admission practices that are potentially biased and largely hidden. Utilising a methodology grounded in the work of Pierre Bourdieu we identify how the school adopts a number of 'unwritten rules', to 'guard the gate'. Moreover, the imagined 'international community' emerges as a major field of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we introduce a project on singles' intimate practices conducted during COVID times as a case study of quantitative social research with a particular focus on qualitative reflections. We thematize the topic of self-reflexivity, which is considered an essential category in qualitative research but largely neglected in quantitative research. We discuss three methodological issues through the lens of self-reflection: 'translation issues'; the problems of asking 'sensitive' and the 'right' questions; and the problematics of 'the present' in particularly fluid times. We show that this approach promotes contextualization of the measurement tool, the data and the findings and can be a way for doing quantitative research on intimacy outside the 'standard' nuclear family in pandemic times. Overall, this paper underscores the ways that scholars as individuals and teams are inextricable from our research site, as we navigate disruption even while seeking to understand its implications on our informants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contrasts agricultural protection of Japan and Korea with the West and identifies major differences between them. It characterizes agricultural protection of Japan and Korea (net heavy food importers) as "tariff-based and scarcity-sensitive" aimed at promoting survival and the West (net food exporters) as "subsidy-based and surplus-inducing" aimed at enhancing farm income. We then identify factors underlying the coevolution and divergence in the extent of agricultural trade liberalization between Japan and Korea since the launch of the Uruguay Round in 1986. Korea accepted deep cuts in agricultural tariffs in bilateral FTAs with the US and EU during the 2000s while Japan continued to protect farm interests by concluding low levels of FTAs with politically sensitive products excluded from tariff concessions. The two countries' stances reversed since 2013 with Japan becoming proactive in pursuing high levels of FTAs with major agricultural exporting countries and Korea decelerating its opening of agricultural markets. To explain such divergences, this paper develops a political economy framework in which the incumbent political leadership would consider both national interests and sectoral (farm as import competing industries and business/manufacturing as exporting industries) special interests. Our analysis shows that President Roh (2002–2007)'s embracing of neoliberal paradigm in formulating foreign trade policies that would promote national interests underlies the unprecedented level of agricultural trade liberalization in Korea during the 2000s, while Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's determination not to be outcompeted by the rising China and Korea's ambitious FTA strategies underlies Japan's proactive bilateral and mega-FTA drives since 2013. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of the port reforms in Japan, the Japanese government has intensively invested in physical infrastructure to maintain the trunk routes at selected and legally repositioned first rank strategic international ports under the Strategic International Container Port Policy. However, although central international ports, which are legally ranked second, have important roles to play in trade with Asia, it is difficult to expand the functions of these ports further without the development of strategic measures, given the government policies and accompanying budget constraints. This paper describes an examination of the feasibility of logistics strategies for a second-rank port to become a hub for Asia in Japan consistent with the current policy by using the global logistics intermodal network simulation, considering Hakata Port as a case study. The results show that Hakata Port has the potential to collect cargo from ports on the Japan Sea side and to launch shuttle services to Southeast Asia. The simulation results also suggest that cooperation with Kitakyushu Port, which is geographically close, is desirable. Approaches based on the characteristics of port governance in Japan are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan has historically been a major player within the Indo-Pacific region due to its rapid post-war economic expansion, technological advancement, massive overseas development aid as well as its cultural outreach. As the Indo-Pacific today is marred with various challenges in the form of maritime and energy security, border conflicts, booming population, developing economies, and rising carbon emissions, among others. The region requires a multipolar balance of power wherein nations can lead by example and concerted action towards creating a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable future for an extensively dynamic Indo-Pacific. This paper focuses on one of the critical variables of the region, i.e., the energy sector, and attempts to place Japan's role and contribution to the region's ongoing energy transitions. The extent and means through which Japan can propel itself and the region towards a just transition with the help of regional and international cooperation have been analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aimed to survey the findings of phenomenological studies built up in the field of diabetes care in Sweden. This is a meta-synthesis of phenomenological studies on experiences related to diabetes in Sweden focusing on learning to live with diabetes. We proceeded by reference to the seven phases of Noblit & Hare. We examined papers from seven phenomenological studies on learning to live with diabetes in Sweden. From the papers, which describe the experience of living with diabetes, three overarching themes were selected—perception and awareness of the body; integration and responsibility; and presence of others who provide support. From those describing the expert's experience, an overarching theme emerged—encouraging reflection in persons with diabetes. We interpreted each of these themes in phenomenological terms and compared them with theories in Japan. Persons with diabetes take responsibility for coping with a range of things brought on by the illness and learn to live with diabetes. Experts support these persons so they can see their world objectively and critically scrutinize it. By building a model of diabetes care in Japan that references Scandinavian human science, it will be possible to find new approaches that support learning at the existential level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comparative analysis of two language policies developed in the 2000s by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). The two language policies analyzed in this paper are the 'Action Plan to Cultivate Japanese with English Abilities' and 'JSL [Japanese as a Second Language] Curriculum in School Education,' developed within the same temporal and spatial frame at the turn of the millennium in Japan. Focusing on lexical labeling in language and population management, it is argued that these two policies have dealt with mutually exclusive groups of the student population, for whom different kinds of bilingualism and Japanese language are imagined. Cumulatively, these two policies represent an unequal access to bilingualism in the Japanese context, combined with the Japanese dualism that indexes national and other speaker-hood through the distinction between kokugo- and nihongo-Japanese education, which has been a key mechanism in the creation of national boundaries in modern Japan. Through this analysis, this paper identifies the particularities of the Japanese case, as well as situating it in the global trend of unequal management of bilingualism. Abbreviations: MEXT: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan [Monbu kagaku sho]; CNL: Council of National Language [Kokugo shingi kai]; CCA: Council of Cultural Affairs [Bunka shingi kai]; CJGTC: Commission on Japan's Goals in the Twenty-First Century [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Japan, the complexity of the teaching profession has been downplayed in the course of repeated systemic reforms, wherein the profession is increasingly viewed as a technical operation. In response to this trend, the concept of "reflective practitioner" (Schön, D. A.) has been proposed as a counterpoint. While it has influenced the discussion of teacher education reform thereafter, it has also been coopted into what Gert Biesta calls "learnification" of teacher education. This paper outlines the trends and debates of teacher education reform in Japan and discusses ways to avoid the "learnification" of teacher education. This paper speaks directly to Item No. 1 of the 8 challenges put forward by the APJTE editors, which concerns the redefinition of teaching "as a technical operation aimed at the effective production of measurable learning outcomes" and its implications for teacher agency, identity and professionalism. It uses Japan as a case to depict the situation in which the trivialisation of teaching into a technical operation and the de-professionalisation of the teaching profession are proceeding not only through the action of educational policy but also through the interaction with discourses that are intended to criticise it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper gives an overview of Zainichi Korean magazines (magazines published by ethnic Koreans living in Japan) from 1980 to the present and examines the directions of major magazines. Zainichi Korean magazines started mostly as outlets for the ethnic Korean community in Japan in the political environment of the 1940s and 50s. Faced with factors such as the division of their Korean homeland and the suppression of Koreans in Japanese society until the 1960s and 1970s, they developed towards conveying a unified voice for the ethnic Korean community in Japan. In the 1980s, the third generation came to account for the majority in the population of the ethnic Korean community in Japan, and their perceptions of the Korean community in Japan, their homeland (Korea), and Japan were different from those of the older generation. The role and stature of Zainichi Korean magazines began to be undermined as an increasing share of the younger generation no longer expected an answer to the question of which source ethnic Koreans in Japan could rely on, now that the age of a collective consciousness had passed. The dwindling role of the Zainichi Korean magazine as an outlet for a collective consciousness was an inevitable trend. As if proving this, in the 1990s Zainichi Korean magazines rapidly lost their cultural dominance in all areas, including literature, politics, history, and popular culture. Since the 2000s, the market for Zainichi Korean magazines has generally been on the decline. Not only is the launch of new magazines dropping rapidly, but they can hardly be said to function as a public forum that can unite the entire Zainichi Korean community. As the specialized nature of the "Zainichi" Korean media is no longer appealing not only to the younger generations but also the older generations, the drift towards breaking away from the Zainichi Korean media is already a fait accompli. Notwithstanding this, many of the Zainichi Korean magazines are still looking for new roles to play in the midst of a changing environment for the Zainichi Korean community, and the future of Zainichi Korean magazines will depend on their decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With Japan's thrust towards a more balanced energy mix, it has been undergoing what can be termed as an energy transition. While the Fukushima Disaster has played a crucial role in this transition, the Paris Agreement has further acted as an impetus for the same. However, since 2012 Japan was under the political leadership of Shinzo Abe, who today is the longest-serving Prime Minister of Japan until Yoshihide Suga took over the prime ministership recently. Under Abe's guidance, Japan's energy policy has been a mixed bag with a few hits and some major misses. Now, as Japan welcomes its new Prime Minister Suga, it falls upon him to lead Japan on a path of just transition. One which balances its energy and economic goals and pays heed to the necessity of building a climate-friendly sustainable model. This paper maps and evaluates the Abe administration's broad energy policy measures and attempts to foresee the changes Suga administration can introduce to the ongoing energy transition of Japan. It also highlights the areas within the energy sector, which might require the focus of PM Suga to enable Japan to take advantage of the opportunity of making Japan a part of global green leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the significant importance of environmental sustainability, it is vital to understand the determinants of environmental sustainability and to draw the policy implications for a sustainable environment. This paper examines the impacts of financial development and industrial structure on environmental sustainability in China from 1995 to 2020 using the A.R.D.L. approach. The result indicates that financial development negatively impacts CO2 emissions and greenhouse gas emissions in the long-run. The impact of industrial structure is also enormous. The results also suggest that industrial structure negatively impacts environmental sustainability by decreasing CO2 emissions and greenhouse gas emissions in the long-run. While Internet development accelerates environmental sustainability in Japan in the long run, economic development and energy negatively impact environmental sustainability in the long run. The findings of this study add to the current literature and provide some significant policy implications for improving environmental sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Escalation of great power rivalry resulting from China's rise and Russia's invasion of Ukraine has prompted Japan to align its foreign and security policies more closely. This paper analyzes how ODA policy, which the Japanese government regards as a crucial diplomatic instrument, has been modified in the face of these changes. The most significant transformation is the securitization of ODA, or the deployment of ODA to advance Japan's national security interests. This trend is evident in the emergence of a new type of ODA that aims to contribute to Japan's security interests by strengthening the deterrence capabilities of developing countries involved in territorial disputes with China. Notably, Japan is justifying this new ODA trend in the name of upholding the universal value of the international rule of law. In other words, Japan is shifting the focus of assistance away from domestic issues of democracy and human rights in each recipient country toward the rule of law in international relations. This is a manifestation of Japan's effort to strike a careful balance between upholding universal values and avoiding the risk of offending incumbent governments in recipient countries with questionable domestic governance records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing risk of a military attack on Taiwan by mainland China (otherwise known as the People's Republic of China, or PRC) to achieve what the latter terms "reunification." Taiwan, the US, and Japan must urgently and interactively prepare for this contingency—which is also the best way of deterring it. Taiwan must increase military spending (as it has begun to do), with an emphasis on a "porcupine strategy" of lots of distributed, mobile, survivable, affordable, and lethal weapons. The US must increase its military deployments and joint exercises in the region, again emphasizing the types of weapons that can survive a preemptive PRC attack and counter a Chinese blockade or amphibious invading force. Japan will double defense spending over the next five years in a welcome and transformative move, but effective deterrence requires that it also signal that the collective defense of Taiwan against a military attack is existential for its own security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper examines how female and foreign corporate directors influence their corporation's climate change behaviour. This study found that female directors contribute to the formulation of their company's climate change vision, and foreign directors contribute to the formulation of a climate change mission. Japan has set a long-term goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, an extremely difficult goal to achieve. Our results suggest that it is important to appoint female and foreign directors to achieve net zero emissions. Our results also suggest that diversity among company directors needs to be further expanded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population decline is expected to continue to be a prominent feature of Japanese demography in future decades. Internal migration plays a significant role in dictating the intensity of population decline at the regional level. In this paper we visualize inter-prefecture internal migration flows between the eight regions of Japan in 2020 using a chord diagram to show the relative scales of the origin-destination migration flows between each region. In addition, we use an animated series of chord diagrams to show the development of internal migration between 1954 and 2020. We fix the axis of the sectors of the chord diagram in the animation to illustrate the rapid growth and then slow decline (post-1972) in the regional migration system, as well as the interruption in the movement patterns during 2011, due to the Great East Japan Earthquake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article scrutinises the significance of the most-favoured-nation (MFN) treaty in promoting the development of commercial activity and its results in transnational trade. As cardinal agents of trade policy, governments act as ‘umpires’ in formulating and guarding the rules of international trade, while the ‘players’ are private corporations which conduct commercial operations in the playing field of international trade. Within the framework of Finno-Japanese trade relations, the players established and developed their trade networks (corporate interconnections) regardless of the umpires and their official rules, meaning the commercial treaties. Through a close examination of the early trade policy relations between Finland and Japan along with the formation and development of the Finnish forest industry’s sales networks into the Japanese market in the early twentieth century, this study demonstrates that there was no explicit causal connection between MFN treaties and the evolution of the Finnish forest industry’s export efforts – and their results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Conceptually anchored on lived religion, this paper explores the meanings and experiences of health, illness, and healing among Filipino migrant women in Japan as they intersect with their religion. Likewise, it explores the functions and limitations of religion as migrant women face physical and mental health problems caused by work, marital status, and/or dislocation. Using biographical interviews and ethnography, this paper suggests that religion serves as a material and symbolic resource for making sense of health, illness and healing. As a material resource, it offered tangible, informational, and emotional support. It can however become limiting when personalised meanings and practices of religion frame illness based on morality, promote health misinformation, and delay healing and other health-seeking behaviours. Nonetheless, healing as perceived and experienced by Filipino migrant women involves lived religion in their complex meaning making and negotiated in terms of its physiological, spiritual and emotional effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses notions of health in alcohol use among new Japanese immigrants in a Japanese pub in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. Japanese-style pubs are a space mediating sociability and subjective health through alcohol consumption, a symbol of good health. In the context of the pub, Japanese immigrants form strong intragroup bonds reinforcing a therapeutic narrative; the sensory experience created through social drinking offers a method of resolving stress, validating affect, and positively shaping well-being. However, positive health outcomes are stratified by social position, gender, and cultural capital, leading to negative health experiences for staff and the marginalization of problems. Therapeutic potential is embedded in a commercial space and regularly available to affluent clients. Health becomes a plural, contradictory concept tied to the body, biomedicine, and economy. This paper contributes towards broader understandings of the intricacies of substance use and the production of health knowledge and lacunae within transcultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to consider some of the philosophical problems on gender in sport in terms of practical philosophy by examining previous studies on sports and gender in Japan. The previous studies of the Journal of Sport and Gender Studies, an institutional journal of the Japan Society for Sport and Gender Studies (JSGS), and were reviewed to explain the characteristics and the limits of previous sports-gender studies in Japan to establish the parameters for a philosophical discussion of sport-gender studies. A philosophical examination of the issues of affirmative actions, which is the least discussed topic among those listed in ‘JSGS’, is presented. By revealing fundamental problems in research on sports and gender in Japan, this study may potentially contribute to the resolution of multiple issues surrounding women in sports in Japan. Also, by exposing general and omnipresent problems, the study transcends the limited framework of sports in Japan, and can point to those common and overarching gender issues that need to be resolved around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Japan formulated its first infrastructure export strategy in 2010. However, the outputs and effects of that strategy and its successive revisions over the preceding decade have not yet been extensively reviewed. Although infrastructure came to the fore of the international agenda over the past decade, existing research has mostly discussed individual infrastructure projects and accompanying signalling, sloganeering, and strategic communications in the geopolitical and geo-economic context. This paper therefore aims to make an empirical and interpretive contribution to existing scholarship by comprehensively reviewing Japan's infrastructure exports in 2010–19 and elucidating further its oft-disregarded commercial and developmental aspects. To do so, this article focuses on Official Development Assistance (ODA) loan projects, which count among the largest items of Japan's infrastructure exports. We introduce and analyse a previously unexamined dataset on infrastructure-related ODA loan projects and contract awards, while also showcasing the avoidance of zero-sum-game approaches in Japan's related strategy. We then discuss whether and how the changes of Japanese infrastructure export strategy affected the performance of Japan's infrastructure export through the ODA loan projects as well as Japan's relationship with the recipient countries, especially in the various parts of the Indo-Pacific region, such as Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan's military participation in the First World War was relatively brief but the war and the ideas it unlocked exerted an impact up to and after the Second World War. Japan experienced an economic boom during the war resulting in an exponential increase in the cost of rice. This sparked a serious challenge to the Japanese state. The ensuing rice riots of 1918 saw the government forced to deploy more troops to suppress them than it had sent to intervene on behalf of White Russian forces in Siberia in the same year. Further, the 'Wilsonian Moment' emboldened the Korean independence movement in 1919. When the war ended on the Western Front in 1918, Japan was involved in military intervention in Eastern Russia, was quelling domestic unrest, and facing a major threat to the stability of its empire. Although enacted in 1925, the Peace Preservation Law grew directly from the events beginning in the final year of the First World War. The law was the instrumental platform for the construction of Japan's infamous thought control apparatus of the 1930s and the policing of Japan's formal and informal empires. This paper traces the wartime origins of the Peace Preservation Law in the context of the state of exception and how the First World War and the Russian Revolution forced Japan to rethink its conception of sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Personal Outcomes Scale is a measurement tool to examine quality of life among persons with intellectual disability. This paper addressed the validity and reliability of the Japanese version of the scale using both self-reports and reports of others. Data were collected from 128 people with intellectual disability (90 men and 38 women; Mage = 37.19 ± 11.90 (range = 19–69) years) and 27 support workers. Reliability was examined by Cronbach's alpha coefficients, inter-respondent reliability coefficients, and test-retest reliability. Validity was examined by construct validity and criteria-related validity. Self- and other-reported versions showed adequate internal consistency (α = 0.79); however, some domains had relatively low internal consistency. Validity tests showed weak to moderate correlations between the total score and the domain scores in both versions. The scale is reliable overall; however, cultural aspects should be considered to bolster its reliability for practical application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reviewed the literature on psycho-social treatments for reducing school absenteeism in Japan, particularly focussing on those featuring a cognitive-behavioural approach. To extract studies, we screened journals published by 52 academic societies that are members of the Union of the Japanese Psychological Association and reviewed relevant peer-reviewed papers. We consequently analysed 31 cases: 21 elementary school students and 10 junior high school students. We found that to effectively address school absenteeism in Japan, cognitive-behavioural approaches should feature a combination of two or more behavioural techniques. These findings may help Japanese practitioners, such as school counsellors, explain to clients the benefits of choosing cognitive-behavioural approaches, as well as the prospects for support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As more countries witness depopulation, the expansion of High-Speed Rail (HSR) to reach shrinking cities in peripheral regions is renewing the debate on the effects of this infrastructure. This is the case in Japan, a country that continues to extend its highly developed HSR network hoping to curb regional decline. This paper investigates whether HSR had a positive effect on the shrinking trajectories of connected medium and small-sized cities in peripheral regions by examining the impact of extending the Shinkansen network on five municipalities in the prefectures of Iwate and Aomori, northern Japan. Although depopulation decelerated in some of the case studies, the findings highlight that HSR did not reverse shrinkage and benefits are mainly found in increased accessibility, albeit unevenly distributed. This suggests that, rather than uniformly uplifting socio-economic outlooks, the Shinkansen contributed to reshaping the trajectories of the connected cities and reproduced core–periphery dynamics at the regional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does the notion of state security inform national approaches to managing cross-border in-migration in the increasingly interconnected but volatile Northeast Asian region? This paper explores this question by focusing on the intermestic politics of labor importation. Specifically, it theorizes the multidimensionality and multifunctionality of security fears that inform Japan's and Taiwan's approaches to the admission of low-skilled foreign workers. The paper proposes a comprehensive conceptual framework that explicates these relationships and argues that Northeast Asian labor importation regimes were formed at the intersection of a threefold logic of state security. Whereas economic security acted as an enabling (inclusionary) factor in both Japan and Taiwan and motivated the acceptance of foreign workers, internal security in Japan and external security in Taiwan acted as constraining (exclusionary) factors, which directly and distinctively conditioned the resulting policies. Moreover, ever since their inception in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, the divergent policy regimes have been interlocked in these economic-internal and economic-external dynamics of state security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the 'new trinity' reform of labour markets proposed in 2023, which is an integral part of Japan's New Form of Capitalism. After providing an overview of the reform's three components – reskilling/upskilling, inter-company mobility, and job-based employment – it discusses how the reform may contribute to reduction of labour shortages, skill shortages, and inequality among workers. It then assesses challenges to this reform, ways to overcome these challenges, and how Japan may hold answers for other countries facing similar labour market problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting with a broad overview of the need for urgent action concerning climate change globally, this paper then reviews the evolution of environmental policy in Japan up to and including green transformation (GX) measures taken under the Kishida administration, and an assessment of the changes still needed to achieve sustainability in Japan. An integrated approach has been adopted in Japan, encompassing the environment, the economy, and society, to achieve three transitions: first, to a de-carbonized society; second, to a circular economy; and third, to a 'nature-positive', decentralized society which co-exists with nature. This approach was signalled in the Regional Circular and Ecological concept in the Fifth Environmental Basic Plan of 2018, building on extensive discussions within the Ministry of Environment and with other ministries from 2014, in the wake of the 2011 triple earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many years Australia ignored or downplayed the role of values in foreign policy, preferring to focus on economic issues and engagement with Asia. Recently, however, values have re-emerged as a central aspect of Australian foreign policy, both rhetorically in government White Papers and through initiatives such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue comprising the established democracies of Australia, India, Japan and the United States. This commentary charts the rise of values-based language in Australian and Japanese speeches and policy documents, and argues that core concepts such as shared democratic values have an important – and under-appreciated – relevance in the new era of a rising autocratic China and in the framing of the Indo-Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of foreign direct investment (FDI) on host country's economic growth is a widely explored issues in the existing economic literature. This study attempts to examine the role of foreign direct investment, capital formation, and expansion of female education on economic growth of Japan during the period 1971–2014, using time series observations. The study further makes a comparison regarding the association with FDI and economic growth with South Korea, another major OECD economy of Asia The study utilises the auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds approach to cointegration to examine the long run causality association among the variables. Today, for sustainable economic development the social and institutional policy issues are important. The paper explores one such social issue, namely gender and economic prosperity. This paper has novel contributions in the current research on time series, econometric analysis for the following reasons: (1) it has investigated the relationship between economic growth, foreign direct investment and capital formation in a gendered differential framework (utilising the role of human capital formation among men versus women; (2) the study covers a long period and more recent time period (till 2014), which concurs with the upsurge of world FDI movements and (3) the study also explores the major structural breaks of the two economies and how economic growth is impacted thereof. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on migrants' experiences of moving house in the country of settlement, the study explores the housing pathways of Russian-speaking migrants in Japan over their life courses. This paper emphasizes the need for the anthropology of migration to consider not only the housing events but also the housing pathways experienced by cross-border migrants in receiving countries. It is argued that the act of moving from one accommodation to another plays a crucial role in how migrants develop their biographies and perceptions of self. In addition to investigating house relocation, the study borrows from the Russian formalist school of narratology to examine how migrants narrativize their experiences in stories that intertwine housing pathways and movers' identities. The study reveals how the instances of moving—and not necessarily the physical qualities of housing—emerge as dynamic forces that initiate migrants into their desired statuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a critical engagement with endings in relation to formulations of crisis and futures through two sites that stage an encounter with the end. The first is the permanent exhibit at Japan's National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo. This site, I show, asks us to reflect on how we think about the end of civilisation as an immanent crisis to be overcome through an innovation that allows us to escape accountability for conditions in the present. As such, I argue, it ultimately encourages us to cultivate attention and accountability toward material and conceptual problems in the present. The discussion then takes the idea of cultivating attention to the present to northeast Japan. I show there how an ending inflicted on the coastal residents by the tsunami of March 2011 has made space for precisely this kind of attention and accountability to the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether boundary changes lead to changes in the relationship between voters and politicians. We focus on the wave of municipal mergers in Japan that took place in the 2000s in order to examine this question. Municipalities with small population size, once they merge with their larger neighbours, would have a small number of voters relative to the size of the electorate in the post-merger municipalities. Therefore, municipal politicians in the post-merger municipalities do not have strong electoral incentives to receive support from geographic areas corresponding with pre-merger municipalities of small population size. Using a survey of voters in 89 locations corresponding with pre-merger municipalities, we demonstrate that voters who live in small municipalities that experienced mergers interact with politicians less frequently and have less favourable impressions of politicians than before the mergers. These patterns are not observed in municipalities that did not experience mergers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between patenting and publishing at the project level. It uses Japan's Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research database. Japan's Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research is the major funding source for academic researchers in Japan. This database provides information on inputs (budget, period, project members, etc.) and outputs (publications and patents) from each funded research project. The main finding is that patenting has a curvilinear correlation with higher impact, i.e. the number of higher impact publications from funded research projects increases with the number of patents only to a certain amount, and after a peak, it decreases. Our finding implies that if a finding is a relatively significant and marketable breakthrough, researchers who have the possibility of patenting in mind become less likely to share their results openly. Meanwhile, previous studies implicitly assumed that researchers have to make a choice between basic or applied research projects, or for a particular research project choose to make it more applied or basic. Another finding of this study is that the assumption applies to projects. Our findings imply that a heavy emphasis on patenting may reduce the amount of high-quality publishing of scientific research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) rights and same-sex partnership are framed and discussed at the macro-level of state discourse as well as the micro-level of individual negotiation of partnership in Japan. Drawing on but reformulating Puar's concept of homonationalism, we found that the Japanese state projects a progressive national identity that consists ironically in denying full citizenship to sexual and gender minorities. It invokes an alleged history of tolerance in Japan to frame its 'unique' and 'superior' approach to SOGI rights. It is an approach inextricably bound to the heteronormative institution of marriage and family as a system of ruling. Arguments in favour of same-sex marriage reproduce the same narrative of tolerance, while naturalizing marriage and removing it from its sociolegal context and biologizing sexual orientation. Individuals contemplating or registering partnerships likewise reinforce the sanctity of marriage, even without embracing it. We suggest that a thorough discussion of marriage in its legal framework and historical context is necessary to develop the critical potential of same-sex partnership. We also advocate exploring intra-Asian influences in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues the perceptions of relations between two nations involve not only the institutionalized national-boundary but also the perspectives of multiple symbolic boundaries. Based on a qualitative study, this paper aims to explain how different symbolic boundaries impact Japanese experts' perception of interrelations between Japan and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). The paper includes an analysis of opinion surveys, 20 semi-structured interviews with experts, and three focus group interviews with university students of Peace Studies Departments conducted throughout June and July of 2018 in Tokyo, Japan. These results advance existing scholarship by showing that Japanese experts use the following four symbolic boundaries to comprehend relations between Japan and South Korea: boundaries between (1) victims and perpetrators; (2) 'the West' and the Asian cultural and political space; (3) nationalistic and peaceful countries; and (4) a state and people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Japanese crown prince and emperor Hirohito during the 1920s to think more critically about how fashion historians can analyze "western" dress in non-western contexts. In particular, this essay looks at Hirohito's embrace of new forms of middle-class menswear—particularly sportswear and the lounge suit—to signal fundamental shifts in the relationship between monarch and subject. These innovations rested upon far more than simply imitating western centers of men's fashion. Instead, this paper argues that to understand the meaning of "western" clothing styles in non-western contexts, fashion studies needs a more sophisticated paradigm than the term "western clothes." While some garments carried strong resonances of their European antecedents, Japanese men like Hirohito adopted them primarily for what they could do in Japan, while also understanding their potential for integrating Japan into the broader world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article takes a critical look at the sovereignty claims surrounding the Senkaku / Diaoyu Islands. The dispute has long plagued Sino-Japanese relations and is considered one of the key regional security hotspots, with the People's Republic of China mounting an active challenge to Japanese administrative control. This article reviews the case for sovereignty under both the discovery and the prescription principles. However, the article concludes that one cannot find a compelling case for sovereignty under either principle in favour of either claimants. The paper argues that this is due to the traditional insignificance of the islands prior to UNCLOS establishing exclusive economic zones. Rather, the article suggests that to facilitate a resolution to the disputes, the islands should not be classified as islands under UNCLOS as they do not meet the legal threshold for such a classification, either today or historically. If anything, the weakness of claims that contributes to the intractability of the dispute today shows that traditionally neither China nor Japan has considered these territories as islands in a manner that would be in the spirit of UNCLOS. While such a reclassification would not immediately resolve the dispute, it would be a significant step to remove incentives for the further pursuit of conflicting sovereignty over the islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By extending the late Osamu Kanamori's notion of science fiction (sci-fi) as it "re-articulate[s] various issues that bioethical studies had formally discussed," this paper provides a cultural analysis of Japanese sci-fi stories from the 1990s with reference to the exchange of body parts. By focusing on the time when organ transplantation from brain-dead donors was part of many intensive debates, this paper pays particular attention to the fictional representations of humanity, which feature body-part exchanges between the living and the dead, in genres ranging from Noh 能dramas to manga 漫画. In this paper I shed light on two issues: (1) how sci-fi representations described the matter of humanity vis-à-vis exchanging parts of the body, and (2) in what ways and on what terms bioethical discourses relating to Japanese organ transplant medicine from brain-dead donors were rearticulated through these sci-fi narratives. I also argue that such rearticulated values were inscribed in the process of constructing the bioethical code of practice in transplant medicine and deathbed care that took place during the late 1990s. By doing so, this paper confirms the role that sci-fi plays in bioethical imaginations, as Kanamori has pointed out and as can also be seen in East Asian societies like Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the development of the hensachi system in Japanese education from the 1960s when it first appeared as a de facto measure for scholastic achievement. Unlike absolute scoring systems (such as A-level grades) hensachi gave an indication of the probability of getting a place on a particular course at a particular school or university rather than telling applicants where the bar was set in order to have a chance of being offered a place. Private companies quickly saw the opportunity to collate the huge amounts of data needed to obtain accurate hensachi bell curve distributions and began operating practice exams (mogi shiken) in schools across Japan. From the mid-1970s onwards, hensachi increasingly became seen as the source of many educational ‘evils’ in Japan and there were many attempts to ban its use. It was blamed for cramming, examination hell, and a focus on educational scores rather than learning. The system was also being used by teachers and schools to short cut the real examination system. The final section of the paper explores why, despite these concerns, repeated predictions of the demise of hensachi have proved to be premature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades Japanese criminal syndicates, collectively known as the yakuza, enjoyed a highly visible and semi-legal status that positioned them in a grey area. Accordingly, also much of the yakuza's business lies in a grey zone: night-entertainment, different forms of gambling, front companies and (fake) social movements. However, following the introduction of new stricter regulations, the yakuza are struggling to keep operating in the legal and semi-legal areas of their business, and have been pushed to explore new modi operandi, using (semi)legal actors and loopholes. Based on fieldwork conducted in Japan with current and ex-yakuza members, this paper analyses the yakuza's response to the reduced opportunities to engage in legal activities. It is argued that this determined an increased involvement with predatory crimes for low-ranking members, while the decreased power in controlling markets allowed for the emergence of novel forms of crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1930 and 1943 over 400 public radio receiver installations were erected by Japan's national broadcaster in public parks around Japan. They were intended to bring radio broadcasting, during this period the voice of the state, to a wider audience and to play a part in Japan's home-front mobilisation efforts. The majority of installations seem to have been destroyed during or shortly after World War Two but roughly 40 are known to be extant, these have yet to receive systematic attention from either Japanese or foreign academics, they thus offer a fresh focus for research into the relationships between the interwar Japanese state and the listening publics. This paper aims primarily to draw attention to the existence of these little—known objects, it also offers a sketch of the media landscape into which they emerged, and covers two significant contemporary social developments—the growth of coordinated mass sport and exercise, and the 'year 2600' celebrations of 1940—which contributed to the spread of radio towers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The politics of international finance for coal power plants have intensified since the 2015 Paris climate agreement was negotiated. Over the past few years, Japan and South Korea have signaled their intent not to fund new coal projects overseas, leaving China and its Belt and Road Initiative as the 'financier of last resort.' In September 2021, China too announced its intent to stop providing finance for overseas coal projects. What accounts for their decision to cease financing overseas coal projects despite prominent differences in political systems, degree of internationalization of their financial systems, and economic size? Drawing on datasets of coal projects and financing supplemented by case material and interviews, this paper explores the dynamics of coal export finance and how the combination of international reputational pressures and declining demand for coal finance diminished the domestic support for incumbent coal exporters in all three countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]