Presentations -

"Who Will Be Politicians: A Portrait of Modern Japanese Politicsy?"

SHIMIZU Yuichiro

[International presentation]  Hua Kang East Asia Seminar vol. 9 (Chinese Culture University) , 

2023.11

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Oral presentation (invited, special), The Institute of East Asian Humanities and Social Sciences, Chinese Culture University

“Hara Takashi: Pioneer of Japanese Party Politics”

SHIMIZU Yuichiro

[International presentation]  Modern Japanese History Association, New book from Japan No.4 (Online) , 

2023.10

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2023.11

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Oral presentation (invited, special), Modern Japanese History Association (MJHA)

　View Summary

As the first "commoner" prime minister, Hara Takashi led the first full-fledged political party cabinet. Born in the Morioka domain, which had been defeated in the Boshin War, Hara studied hard and worked as a newspaper reporter before joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and rising to the rank of Vice Minister. Thereafter, he joined Ito Hirobumi's Seiyukai party and became a party politician. Amidst the Taisho Political Crisis and the 1918 Rice Riots, he served as a cabinet minister, and then as party leader, implementing reforms that sometimes antagonized and sometimes compromised with the various factions based on pre-Meiji feudal domains. After becoming the first elected politician to become prime minister of Japan, he was assassinated in the midst of attempting to bring about far-sighted reforms. Although Hara has sometimes been described as autocratic and dictatorial, this book examines his original intentions and argues that Hara was a realist politician who was willing to forge difficult compromises with his political opponents in order to achieve his aims.

“The Electoral District System & Japanese Politics: The year 1900 as a turning point”

SHIMIZU Yuichiro

[International presentation]  European Association for Japanese Studies International Conference (Ghent University , Ghent ,) , 

2023.08

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Oral presentation (general), European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS)

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The electoral system, which is the foundation of representative democracy, has been the subject of much debate in Japan in recent years. These include lowering the voting age, relaxing restrictions on electoral activities, and reexamining electoral administration.

Among these, the electoral district system has become the most controversial issue. As a result of the campaign to correct the disparity in the number of votes and the "unconstitutional state of affairs" ruling by the Supreme Court, a major revision of the electoral districts for the House of Representatives was made in November 2022.

Based on the principle that members of the National Diet are representatives of the people, the current electoral district allocation, which insists on the demarcation of basic municipalities, is questionable. On the other hand, while leaning on the "myth of representation of the people”, the fact remains that regional representatives have been selected. We can find the strong path-dependency, not just the pursuit of reelection possibilities for the representatives.

How then, have Japan's electoral districts been divided and changed? There have been major revisions of the electoral district system in 1889, 1900, 1919, 1925, 1945, 1947, and 1994. We can confirm that amendments, which were extremely frequent in the prewar period, became rare in the postwar period. This is inseparable from the instability of party politics and democracy in the prewar period and its stability in the postwar period. At the same time, it is also the institutional basis for the high probability of regime change in the prewar period and the establishment of one-party rule in the postwar period. Japan's electoral district system can be said to be a spatial political system that has strongly defined Japanese politics in the prewar and postwar periods.

In other words, understanding the effect of electoral districts reform is a major aid to understanding Japan's political culture and climate. In this report, we focus on the continuum of the electoral districts in order to examine their influence on Japanese politics.

「書評　伊藤陽平『日清・日露戦後経営と議会政治―官民調和構想の相克』」

清水唯一朗

[Domestic presentation]  第99回内務省研究会 (國學院大学（オンライン）) , 

2022.03

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Oral presentation (invited, special), 内務省研究会

History, Life and Narrative in Oral History for public official

SHIMIZU Yuichirou

[International presentation]  International Symposium, "History, Life and Narrative: Oral History in East Asia" (Ritsumeikan University(Online)) , 

2022.02

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Oral presentation (invited, special), East Asian Life History Study Group

Liberal modernism and party politics in Japan

SHIMIZU Yuichirou

[International presentation]  「戦後日本におけるリベラル・モダニズムの総合的解明」研究会 (Keio University) , 

2021.12

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Oral presentation (general), 「戦後日本におけるリベラル・モダニズムの総合的解明」研究会

Institutionalism in the Taisho Democracy

SHIMIZU Yuichirou

[International presentation]  The 5th Annual Conference of the East Asian Consortium of Japanese Stuides (Korea University(Online)) , 

2021.11

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Oral presentation (general), East Asian Consortium of Japanese Stuides

Speech and violence in Taisho democracy

Yuichiro Shimizu

[International presentation]  Taiwanese Cultural Association 100th Anniversary International Academic Conference (National Taipei Universiry, Taipei, Taiwan) , 

2021.10

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Public lecture, seminar, tutorial, course, or other speech, Center for Haishan Research of NTPU

Oral History Project in Higher Education

Yuichiro Shimizu

[Domestic presentation]  Japan Association for Social Policy Studies (Online Conference) , 

2021.03

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Symposium, workshop panel (nominated), Japan Association for Social Policy Studies, The Ohara Institute for Social Research

Japanese Politics under the Post-Abe government: Birth of the full-fledged reshuffled cabinet

SHIMIZU Yuichiro

[International presentation]  Japan-China Relationship under the Covid19 situation (Online Conference) , 

2020.09

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Symposium, workshop panel (nominated), SFC Japan studies platform and Institution of Japan Studies in Chinese Academy of So-cial Sciences

Development politics and democracy in modern Japan

SHIMIZU Yuichirou

[International presentation]  The 4th Annual Conference of the East Asian Consortium of Japanese Stuides (National Taiwan ) , 

2019.11

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Oral presentation (general), East Asian Consortium of Japanese Stuides

How Japan enhance its youth: From Meiji revolution to now

SHIMIZU Yuichiro

[International presentation]  National Taipei University Historical Studies special lecture (National Taipei Universiry, Taipei, Taiwan) , 

2019.10

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Public lecture, seminar, tutorial, course, or other speech, National Taipei University Historical Studies

「明治維新150年與日本的政治」

Yuichiro Shimizu

[International presentation]  國際學術論壇「東亞人文社會科學研究的新地平線」 (中國文化大學（台灣）) , 

2019.10

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Oral presentation (invited, special), 中國文化大學東亞人文社會科學研究院（台灣）

Historical analysis of Japanese bureaucracy

SHIMIZU Yuichiro

[Domestic presentation]  Weekend seminar, Human Resource Management Study Group (Mita campus, Keio University) , 

2019.09

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Oral presentation (invited, special), Human Resource Management Study Group

Historical studies in Japanese Association of Electoral Studies

SHIMIZU Yuichiro

[Domestic presentation]  Japanese Association of Electoral Studies Annual Conference (Tohoku University) , 

2019.07

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Oral presentation (invited, special), Japanese Association of Electoral Studies

「オーラルヒストリー夏の学校の実践」

清水唯一朗

[Domestic presentation]  第4回オーラルヒストリーのつどい (東京大学先端研) , 

2019.04

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Oral presentation (invited, special), 東京大学先端科学技術研究センター政治行政システム分野

「明治維新と人材育成―育成、登用、昇進―」

清水 唯一朗

[International presentation]  国際シンポジウム「明治維新とベトナムのドイモイ」 (ベトナム国家大学ホーチミン市人文社会科学大学（ベトナム）) , 

2019.03

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Oral presentation (keynote), ベトナム国家大学ホーチミン市人文社会科学大学（ベトナム）

"Meiji Restoration and the 3.11 Great Earthquake: Youths and Two Major Human Resource Revolutions in Japan"

SHIMIZU Yuichiro

[International presentation]  150 Year Anniversary of the Meiji Restoration Lecture (Universität Heidelberg) , 

2018.11

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Oral presentation (invited, special), Exzellenzcluster "Asien und Europa im globalen Kontext", Universität Heidelberg

Electoral Districts and han-clan domain

NAKAJIMA, Yukihiro, KAMAHARA Yuta, FURUTANI Tomoyuki, SHIMIZU Yuichirou

[Domestic presentation]  The 27th(2017) academic research presentation conference, GIS Association Japan (Tokyo Metropolitan University) , 

2018.10

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Oral presentation (general), GIS Association Japan

Historical institutional analysis about the first full-fledged party cabinet in modern Japan

SHIMIZU Yuichiro

[Domestic presentation]  Japanese Political Science Association Annual Conference (Kansai University) , 

2018.10

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Oral presentation (general), Japanese Political Science Association