Sakamato Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration

Jansen, Marius B.

doi:10.1515/9781400879656

Cited by 93 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…It was significantly less ambitious in agenda and limited in terms of its social and economic impact when compared with Japan's Meiji Restoration, where reforms went beyond military modernization and involved, among other things, an overhaul of the land ownership system, the introduction of compulsory education, and state-led investment on a nationwide rail transport network (Jansen, 2000). As Figure 2 illustrates, China lagged behind Japan in railroad construction in the run-up to the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5.…”

Section: External Threats and State Disintegration In Qing Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Before the late Tokugawa period, the Shogunate was able to maintain a monopoly over foreign and inter-domain affairs. However, there was no central treasury in Tokugawa Japan, nor was there a central army (Jansen, 2000). The Shogunate had no right to tax other domains and the local domains maintained their own administrators, armies, tax systems, and legal codes (Totman, 1993).…”

Section: From Tokugawa To Meiji Japanmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Like the leaders of Qing China, the political leadership in Japan reacted to the mid-nineteenth century crisis under huge uncertainty (Jansen, 2000;He, 2013). But as an island state, Japan's national and local objectives of security and reform were broadly complementary; the contradiction between political centralization and local state building did not exist.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to Beasley (2000, 50), the Shogunate's reform program "was a blueprint for 'wealth and strength' on the lines which the Meiji government was later to follow." central government, reforms on land, education, monetary, and other areas were implemented on a national scale in a short span of time (Jansen, 2000). While Japan's political and economic transformation during the Meiji era is widely regarded today as a textbook case of successful modernization and industrialization, it is worth noting that like China, the general population in Japan-samurai and peasants alike-demonstrated considerable xenophobia and resistance to reform too.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is in keeping with the historical record. For example, while there were initial conflicts within the Tokugawa Shogunate in the 1850s-as reflected by the Ansei Purge in which opponents of the opening up to western trade were removed from official positions-by the 1860s, a consensus emerged among the leaders in all camps about the need to implement radical reforms (Jansen, 1961). The subsequent Satsuma Rebellion does not contradict but instead validates our argument: the participants of the rebellion were dislocated samurai whose interests were hurt in the reform process and the rebellion was decisively suppressed because the state in Meiji Japan had sufficient capacity to do so.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Geopolitics and Asia’s little divergence: State building in China and Japan after 1850

Koyama

Moriguchi

Sng

2018

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We provide a new framework to account for the diverging paths of political development in China and Japan during the late nineteenth century. The arrival of Western powers not only brought opportunities to adopt new technologies, but also fundamentally threatened the sovereignty of both countries. These threats and opportunities produce an unambiguous impetus toward centralization and modernization for small states, but place conflicting demands on larger states.We use our theory to study why China, which had been centralized for much of its history, experienced gradual disintegration upon the Western arrival, and how Japan rapidly unified and modernized.

show abstract

Section: External Threats and State Disintegration In Qing Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: From Tokugawa To Meiji Japanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Geopolitics and Asia’s little divergence: State building in China and Japan after 1850

Koyama

Moriguchi

Sng

2018

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Japan Die Vielfalt kultureller Programme der Moderne

Eisenstadt¹

2023

Klassiker Der Sozialwissenschaften

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A theory of elite revolutions

Trimberger

1972

St Comp Int Dev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

T his paper attempts to conceptualize a unique type of political revolutionthe elite revolution-through historical study of the Meiji Restoration (1868) in Japan and the Ataturk Revolution in Turkey. These two revolutions, which marked the overthrow of a traditional regime in violent civil war, abolished the economic and social base of the old order, and created a modern nation-state committed to rapid industrialization, were unusual in two respects: (1) the revolutionary leaders were themselves members of the ruling stratum, holding high status and office in the old regime; and (2) revolutionary conflict and change were contained primarily within elite institutions and did not involve mass participation. The parameters and implications of such elite revolutions will be specified through analysis of: (1) the gen.-sis of revolutionaries in Japan and Turkey; (2) the tactics and organization they developed to overthrow the government and initiate revolutionary change; and (3) the political, economic, and social results of their revolutions.Although the pattern of elite revolution elucidated here cannot be exactly duplicated today, it is relevant to study of the prospects for anti-imperialist revolutions from above in industrializing countries, particularly in the Middle East and Latin America. Moreover, study of this unusual type of revolutionary action provides insights into more universal problems of revolutionary change. Specifically: (1) Contrary to the social theories of Weber, Michels, and others, an analysi. of elite revolutions indicates that under certain conditions bureaucrats may become revolutionaries, and that a social stratum of officeholders is more conducive to the genesis of revolutionaries than is a social class with vested interests in private property. (2) Study of the tactics used by elite revolutionaries indicates organizational methods that permi t a revolutionary takeover of power and the initiation of fundamental social change while minimizing the amount of violence, terror, and social upheaval invoh·ed. (3) Analysis of the change generated by elite revolution indicates some of the costs of limited mass involvement in revolutionary action.

show abstract

Sakamato Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration

Cited by 93 publications

References 0 publications

Geopolitics and Asia’s little divergence: State building in China and Japan after 1850

Geopolitics and Asia’s little divergence: State building in China and Japan after 1850

Japan Die Vielfalt kultureller Programme der Moderne

A theory of elite revolutions

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About