Jeff Kingston | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 26, 1957 (age 65) |
| Occupation | Writer, professor |
| Language | English |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
| Subject | Japan |
Jeffrey "Jeff" Kingston (born June 26, 1957) is an American professor at Temple University in Tokyo and an author. He has written a number of books and writes regularly for The Japan Times and other publications.
He graduated with a BS in foreign service from Georgetown University in 1979. He then completed an MA in international affairs in 1981 and a PhD in history, both from Columbia University [1]
He is married and his wife's relatives are from Iwate Prefecture. [2]
Kingston is the director of Asian Studies at Temple University in Tokyo. [3]
Kingston has written for The Japan Times since 1988. He had a weekly column called "Counterpoint" until 2017. [4] He also writes for The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus . [5]
 |
Kingston is a consistent critic of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and his moves to amend Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, which restricts Japan's military [6] [7] and on Abe's historical revisionism about Japanese war crimes. [8] [9] [10]
Politics of Japan are conducted in a framework of a dominant-party bicameral parliamentary constitutional monarchy, in which the Emperor is the head of state and the Prime Minister is the head of government and the head of the Cabinet, which directs the executive branch.
Civil liberties are guarantees and freedoms that governments commit not to abridge, either by constitution, legislation, or judicial interpretation, without due process. Though the scope of the term differs between countries, civil liberties may include the freedom of conscience, freedom of press, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, the right to security and liberty, freedom of speech, the right to privacy, the right to equal treatment under the law and due process, the right to a fair trial, and the right to life. Other civil liberties include the right to own property, the right to defend oneself, and the right to bodily integrity. Within the distinctions between civil liberties and other types of liberty, distinctions exist between positive liberty/positive rights and negative liberty/negative rights.
Komeito, formerly New Komeito and abbreviated NKP, is a conservative political party in Japan founded by lay members of the Buddhist Japanese new religions movement Soka Gakkai in 1964. Since 2012, it has served in government as the junior coalition partner of the Liberal Democratic Party. Natsuo Yamaguchi has been the president of the party since 8 September 2009 and currently serves as a member of the House of Councillors in the National Diet, the Japanese national legislature.
The Liberal Democratic Party, frequently abbreviated to LDP or Jimintō (自民党), is a conservative political party in Japan.
Religion in Japan is manifested primarily in Shinto and in Buddhism, the two main faiths, which Japanese people often practice simultaneously. According to estimates, as many as 80% of the populace follow Shinto rituals to some degree, worshiping ancestors and spirits at domestic altars and public shrines. An almost equally high number is reported as Buddhist. Syncretic combinations of both, known generally as shinbutsu-shūgō, are common; they represented Japan's dominant religion before the rise of State Shinto in the 19th century.
Ultranationalism or extreme nationalism is an extreme form of nationalism in which a country asserts or maintains detrimental hegemony, supremacy, or other forms of control over other nations to pursue its specific interests. Ultranationalist entities have been associated with the engagement of political violence even during peacetime.
The Sankei Shimbun is a daily newspaper in Japan published by the Sankei Shimbun Co., Ltd. It has the seventh-highest circulation for regional newspapers in Japan. Among Japanese newspapers, the circulation is second only to Yomiuri Shimbun, Seikyo Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun, Chunichi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun, the Nikkei, Nikkan Gendai, and Tokyo Sports.
Japanese nationalism is a form of nationalism that asserts that the Japanese are a monolithic nation with a single immutable culture, and promotes the cultural unity of the Japanese. It encompasses a broad range of ideas and sentiments harbored by the Japanese people over the last two centuries regarding their native country, its cultural nature, political form, and historical destiny. It is useful to distinguish Japanese cultural nationalism from political or state-directed nationalism, since many forms of cultural nationalism, such as those associated with folkloric studies, have been hostile to state-fostered nationalism.
John Okada was a Japanese American novelist known for his critically acclaimed novel No-No Boy.
Hiroyuki Hosoda is a Japanese politician who has served as the Speaker of the House of Representatives of Japan since November 2021. He is also a member of the House of Representatives since 1990, and served as Chief Cabinet Secretary in Junichiro Koizumi's Cabinet from 2004 to 2005, and as Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party from 2008 to 2009.
Shinzo Abe was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020. He was the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history. Abe also served as Chief Cabinet Secretary from 2005 to 2006 under Junichiro Koizumi and was briefly the opposition leader in 2012.
Yoshihide Suga is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2020 to 2021. He had served as Chief Cabinet Secretary during the second administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe from 2012 to 2020. During Abe's first administration, Suga served as Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications from 2006 to 2007.
Abe Masahiro was the chief senior councilor (rōjū) in the Tokugawa shogunate of the Bakumatsu period at the time of the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry on his mission to open Japan to the outside world. Abe was instrumental in the eventual signing of the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. Abe did not sign the treaty himself or participate in the negotiations in person; this was done by his plenipotentiary Hayashi Akira. His courtesy title was Ise-no-kami.
Fumio Kishida is a Japanese politician serving as Prime Minister of Japan and president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since 2021. A member of the House of Representatives, he previously served as Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2012 to 2017 and as acting Minister of Defense in 2017. From 2017 to 2020, he also chaired the LDP Policy Research Council.
Jeffrey Rosen is an American academic and commentator on legal affairs, who is widely published on legal issues and constitutional law. Since 2013, he has served as the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, in Philadelphia.
Nobuo Kishi is a Japanese politician who serves as the Special Advisor to the Prime Minister for National Security Policy and Nuclear Disarmament Issues. A member of the Liberal Democratic Party, he previously served as Minister of Defense of Japan from September 2020 to August 2022. He is also a member of the House of Representatives, representing Yamaguchi’s 2nd District since 2012. He is the younger brother of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.
The Nippon Kaigi is Japan's largest ultra-conservative and ultranationalist far-right non-governmental organization and lobby group. It was established in 1997 and has approximately 38,000 to 40,000 members as of 2020. The group influences the legislative and executive branches of the Japanese government through its affiliates. Former prime minister Shinzo Abe, an LDP politician, served as a special advisor to the group's parliamentary league. The group's membership includes grassroots activists as well as national and local politicians; with most of its active members being retired men over 60 years of age, the organization has faced difficulty attracting young people.
General elections were held in Japan on 22 October 2017. Voting took place in all Representatives constituencies of Japan – 289 single-member districts and eleven proportional blocks – in order to appoint all 465 members of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the then 707-member bicameral National Diet of Japan. Incumbent Prime Minister Shinzō Abe's governing coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Komeito party retained their seats in signs of what was perceived as weak opposition. The PM won his fourth term in office and held on to the two-thirds supermajority in order to implement policies on revising the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution.
SEALDs, short for Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy, was a student activist organisation in Japan that organised protests against the ruling coalition headed by Prime Minister Shinzō Abe in 2015 and 2016. Its focus was on the security-related bills enacted in 2015 that allow the Japanese Self-Defense Force to be deployed overseas.
Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution Referendum is a referendum that was expected to take place in 2020. In May 2017, then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe set a 2020 deadline for revising Article 9, which would legitimize the Japan Self-Defense Forces in the Constitution. Abe and his Cabinet resigned in September 2020, due to Abe's health problems.
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
| Scientific databases | |
| Other | |
