ABSTRACT
Most observers of Japanese political life take as given the notion of sengo seiji, that is ‘postwar politics’. And it has become impossible to count the number of references in the literature of politics, both in Japanese and in Western languages, that refer to ‘Postwar Japan’. 1 There is, however, very little concerted reflection about the meaning of this notion. Another peculiarity is that even if, in political science and law, reference to prewar Japan makes sense in Anglo-Saxon political literature, in general terms it is hardly pertinent in Japan. Japanese usage takes account of a time division in other periods, for instance Meiji zenki to describe the political changes of the first half of the Meiji era before the introduction of the constitutional regime, or Shōwa zenki (first half of the Shōwa era), for the dominant characteristics of a political system in course of militarisation. Thus we find ourselves in the presence of an asymmetric perception of time: on the one hand ‘postwar’ is seen in its double dimension, total and global. Total, because the notion of sengo reflects a bloc of time that is indivisible and discriminating, and that distinguishes Japan before from Japan after. Global, because the political and juridical aspect is only one of the areas that affected the changes and the perception of Japanese society after 1945. On the other hand, recourse to a multiple time division circumscribes the politico-institutional evolution to a time that is determined and in the past. In short, when recourse to the above-mentioned periodisation encloses events in a clearly identified historical trajectory, the notion of sengo pulls the events and facts of a past thus referenced right into the present time.
