Mobility and Continuity of Political Elites over Phases of Regime Change: Case of Meiji Restoration Japan

Tomoko Matsumoto and Tetsuji Okazaki
Additional contact information
Tomoko Matsumoto: Japan Legal Information Institute, Nagoya University
Tetsuji Okazaki: Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo

No CIRJE-F-1042, CIRJE F-Series from CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo

Abstract: Despite its significance for regime change and state building, the impact of regime change on elite group has not received adequate scholarly attention. Using the newly constructed 2,979 government elites’ data after the Meiji Restoration in Japan, this paper shows that the uprising camp changes the strategies used to recruit political elites from the regime transition phase to its consolidation phase. Dividing the elites into the pre- and post-Meiji-Restoration born groups, we analyze how the membership and internal ranking of political elites shifted over phases of the regime change and state building. Two main findings emerged: (1) barriers preventing commoners’ access to the elite group were steadily lowered throughout the process and (2) once the transfer of power was achieved, the new government reintegrated old elites into the elite group, and the intra-elite hierarchy again reflected the social stratum of the former regime.

Pages: 65 pages
Date: 2017-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.cirje.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/research/dp/2017/2017cf1042.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tky:fseres:2017cf1042

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CIRJE F-Series from CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CIRJE administrative office ().