Cosmopolitan Nation-Building: The Institutional Contradiction and Politics of Postwar Japanese Education

Hiro Saito

Social Science Japan Journal, 2011, vol. 14, issue 2, 125-144

Abstract: The education system has been a quintessential state apparatus of nation-building since the emergence of the modern nation-state; however, recent comparative studies demonstrate the growing presence of cosmopolitanism in education policies and school curricula around the world. This trend indicates that the education system now operates according to two different institutional logics, nationalism and cosmopolitanism. To understand how the education system negotiates the potential contradiction between nationalism and cosmopolitanism, in this paper, I analyze the case of postwar Japanese education. Theoretically, I synthesize studies of institutional logics and social movements: while the former shed light on a contradiction between different institutional logics as a source of political contestation, the latter help to explain how political actors select solutions to the contradiction. Empirically, I show how a series of education reforms modified the original solution that had prioritized cosmopolitanism over nationalism, culminating in the new Fundamental Law of Education that redefined the two institutional logics as symbiotic. My analysis thus suggests that the Japanese education system is evolving into a state apparatus of cosmopolitan nation-building in an increasingly global world.

Date: 2011
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