ABSTRACT
The human spectrum conveys all the colors of political possibility everywhere. Japanese groups, especially women, have become more active in working for an Asia-wide organization to promote respect for human rights. Burgeoning political forces in Japan are pressing in the direction of democracy and human rights. Reform out of Leninist-Stalinist stagnation has required political decentralization and economic marketization. Such forces are being institutionalized as rights that check arbitrary power. Prospects for a civil society, political representation, and governmental federalism have been greatly enhanced. For the international community to adopt policies to advance this democratic goal, people must be able to imagine it as a viable possibility. The Occidentalist paradigm still transmits data so that what should be central is instead marginalized or treated as mere anomaly. Instead of realizing that any people can democratize, stale and shopworn notions that only upper-income people can democratize are invoked.
