Addressing the Shinto establishment: “Faith talk” and “God talk” in political rhetoric in contemporary Japan

Ernils Larsson

Contemporary Japan, 2025, vol. 37, issue 2, 150-168

Abstract: In The God Strategy, David Domke and Kevin Coe introduced the concepts of God talk and faith talk to distinguish between explicit and implicit references to religion in American political discourse. Although God talk is perhaps more prevalent in nations where allusions to religion are commonplace in political language, faith talk – speaking to adherents through the use of “cues” that are often imperceptible to outsiders – is more likely to be used by politicians in states such as Japan, where secular legislation restricts the political discourse. In this paper I will illustrate how faith talk is used as a rhetorical strategy in the discourse of politicians representing Japan’s conservative right, with a particular focus on the rhetoric and public image of Abe Shinzō. Abe fostered an image of himself as a self-proclaimed nationalist and devoted “Shintoist,” and he retained close ties to many of the organizations that together form the postwar “Shinto establishment,” including the Association of Shinto Shrines (Jinja Honchō, NASS). Although Abe was rarely as explicit as U.S. presidents tend to be, through his words and actions he disseminated the image of Japan as a “Shinto” nation.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/18692729.2023.2251806 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:rcojxx:v:37:y:2025:i:2:p:150-168

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rcoj20

DOI: 10.1080/18692729.2023.2251806

Access Statistics for this article

Contemporary Japan is currently edited by Isaac Gagni

More articles in Contemporary Japan from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().