From November 22-24, 2002, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg hosted the annual meeting of the German Association for Social Science Research on Japan (VSJF). The conference organizer was Gesine Foljanty-Jost, professor of Japanese studies at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. Funding was provided by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. The conference addressed the question whether the 1990s were a ‘lost decade’ for Japan, as some observers suggest, or whether the economic and political crises since the burst of the ‘bubble economy’ initiated change in Japanese institutions and processes.
The conference included presentations by scholars from Germany, Japan, and the United States. The panels addressed the issue of political and economic change in the context of four major areas: political economy and management, politics and policy processes, civil society, and discourses on national identity. To facilitate discussion among participants from various countries, all presentations were given in English.
The panelists identified various levels of change. While speakers focusing on management (Takeo Kikkawa, Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, Franz Waldenberger, Munich University, and Andreas Moerke, German Institute for Japanese Studies) highlighted some trends for meaningful change especially in employment policy and corporate governance, presenters addressing issues in Japanese political economy and politics (Kenji Hirashima, Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, Manfred Pohl, Hamburg University, and Paul Talcott, Emory University) found less positive outcomes of the ten-year struggle to implement institutional reforms or to change policy processes. In the area of civil society, the speakers (Iwao Sato, University of Tokyo, and Wilhelm Vosse, International Christian University) emphasized the growing autonomy of citizens’ activities, but also pointed out the mobilizing role of the state in Japanese civil society and the still fragmented, local and temporary nature of NGOs. The panel on national identity focused on politics of memory and strategies of dealing with the past. The presenters (Gebhard Hielscher, Tokyo, and Steffi Richter, Leipzig University) underscored a growing sensitivity of Japanese politicians towards foreign criticism of official visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, but at the same time emphasized the increasing visibility of neo-nationalist positions in the Japanese media and the public sphere.
The presentations were followed by lively discussions, involving most of the 90 participants from the social sciences and the humanities.
The conference proceedings will be published in the near future.
Please see the conference program for details:
download (VSJF-2002-Programm.pdf, 9 KB) ››
You may also be interested in the
summaries ›› of the panel presentations.
The conference program included panels organized independently by the VSJF
sections. If you are interested in these events and their results, please contact the speakers directly. Sections are active in the fields of:
cultural studies
education
economics
media & popular culture
politics
sociology
urban & regional studies
In addition, two workshops were held in conjunction with the annual conference. Again, if you are interested in the events organized by the Association's
workshops, please contact the speakers directly. The topics of the 2002 workshops were:
Reproducing gender relations in Japan and East Asia
(organized by the workshop for gender studies on Japan)
Institutional economics and Japanese studies
(organized by the workshop for institutions and organizations in the Japanese economy)
Wittenberg is an old university town where Martin Luther once published his famous proclamation criticizing the papal establishment. The city has been declared part of the UNESCO world heritage. Learn more at
wittenberg.de ››