Fragmented Legitimacy
The Rhetorical Construction of Constitutional Legitimacy in Postwar Japan
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13104657 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tomonori Teraoka (0000-0002-8411-2223, University of Pittsburgh, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 346-372 |
| Publication date | 2020-12-11 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Global Intellectual History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2380-1883 • E-ISSN: 2380-1891 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/23801883.2020.1855080 |
| OpenAlex | W3111717291 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 12 |
In the light of constitutional transition from the Meiji Constitution (1889–1946) to the Constitution of Japan (1946-), Japanese intellectuals faced the issue of constructing new constitutional legitimacy in place of the previous one. This legitimacy-building became fragmented between the postwar liberal and conservative: while the former regards the liberal values in the postwar constitution as a new legitimacy, the latter attributes the traditional emperor system to it. However, the extant scholarship has not analysed the details of this fragmented discourse as a whole. This paper examines how the four notable Japanese postwar intellectuals from both liberal and conservative sides –Miyazawa Toshiyoshi, Maruyama Masao, Tsuda Sōkichi, and Watsuji Tetsurō – used rhetorical tropes to account for new legitimacy. The paper studies the intellectuals’ tropes from three rhetorical axes: target audience (particular-cosmopolitan), legitimate source (historicity-normativity), and historical identity (continuity-discontinuity). In doing so, it makes two claims. First, the fragmented frameworks of the postwar constitutional legitimacy are the matter of different tropological constructions of rhetorical/persuasive discourse. Second, the postwar fragmentation of constitutional legitimacy reflects the foundational condition of the contemporary debate over constitutional revision: Japan as a whole has not yet legitimised the postwar constitution as their own
Constitution · Legitimacy · Political science · Politics · Rhetorical question · Sociology · Law · Law in Society and Culture · Narrative Theory and Analysis · Philosophy · Rhetoric and Communication Studies
| Highly cited | No |
|---|