Which term is the greatest political strength in your individual country?
The term that has the greatest political strength in Japan would be the political socialization of its citizens. The Japanese have been able to retain their strong cultural heritage while transforming into a modernized world power, as shown by the presence of an emperor. Another huge aspect of the Japanese culture is that of respect for elders and those in a higher position, shown by the extensive use of honorifics in the Japanese language. This type of socialization is why high education is such a strong agent of political socialization just after the family. As many people already know, the Japanese stress education to its full extent and are in constant interaction with either teachers or peers. Overall, this displays just how strongly the Japanese are socialized to absorb political opinions based on their experiences in higher education. This also plays in with the aspect of honor in Japan, since students have great respect for their teachers and professors and thus take what they teach as fact. Thus, political socialization is the greatest political strength in Japan seeing how it is connected with their strong cultural heritage that has survived to this day.
Which term is the greatest political weakness in your individual country?
The term that has the greatest political weakness in Japan is the political subculture. In Japan, there are two major parties, the DPJ and the LDP. Because of the general Japanese distrust of government, many Japanese are trying to distant themselves from party affiliation. Unity among party members is slowly deteriorating as more scandals are revealed, which in the end could be negative. For example, without two defined political parties, such as in America, it could be harder for compromise in the government concerning important issues. This also creates problems in the legitimacy in the government as more and more Japanese see their party system as ineffective. Another subculture issue is the issue of diversity in Japan. With 99.8% of the people in Japan being of Japanese descent, the large amount of minority groups experience racism and xenophobia (not to be taken as saying the majority of Japanese are racist). There also are some minority groups, such as the Burakumin who were descendants of “outcast communities during the federal era,” who are also discriminated against. Interestingly, ethnic matters are of very little importance in the Japanese government and there is currently no legislation that enforces the civil rights of citizens, thus allowing discrimination to continue with little penalties.
No comments:
Post a Comment