The Japanese Historical Experience -- Comparative and Analytical Dimensions.

The article presents comparative and analytical dimensions of Japan's historical experience in sociological theory. It exhibits a rather unusual combination of, on the one hand, structural similarities with others, especially Western European societies with, on the other hand, some very important differences in their respective institutional dynamics. By virtue of this combination, the analysis of Japanese historical experience provides also a very good case for examining some of the most important theoretical issues in sociological theory above all-of the relations between social structure and culture. The starting point of such a comparative foray is the fact that the institutional history and dynamics of Japan have been, as Emile Durkheim already remarked at the beginning of this century, very similar to those of Western Europe. In Japan and in Western Europe alike there has developed a transition from semi-tribal monarchies through some type of feudalism to more centralized, seemingly absolutist states; a continuous economic development; the growth of cities and commerce; multiple peasant rebellions; and the establishment after a revolutionary event, the Meiji Ishin, of a modern nation state and processes of modernization and industrialization, as well as the generally very high level of continuous institutional changes.