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Paper short abstract:

Interwar period Total War thought has been interpreted as a utilitarian method of social control. This paper seeks to highlight conceptual roots of national mobilization in pre-total war era civilian reformist ideals of solidarism and popular inclusion in the politics of national empowerment.

Paper long abstract:

Recent research on interwar period nationalism and wartime mobilization policies, such as that of leading scholar Fuke Takahiro, has pinpointed the shock of total war in Europe in WWI as triggering the historical inception of a complex of new social concepts: the emergence of 'minponshugi', or mass political participation under the Emperor, and its correlation with socio-economic mobilization, economic efficiency, and pan-Asianism. Conventional narratives of the development of total war planning and its impact have often focused on elite managerial technocrats such as the ‘reform bureaucrats,’ contrasted with an opposition painted as ‘backward, irrational’ Japanists. This stark binary, however, risks obscuring a complex spectrum of ideals for mass politics which cannot be entirely reduced to utilitarian concerns of social control.

This presentation will highlight a prominent strand of military, bureaucratic and civilian nationalists who were instrumental in prioritizing effective mobilization for long-term war, yet also supported a concept of ‘control,’ or tо̄sei, which sought to maintain a central role for the constitutional political representation of the people out of fear of the rise of a technocratic elite unaccountable to the people and the national public good.

This strand of Japanism grounded its understanding of mass politics and its relevance for national mobilization in a worldview which idealized power through communal solidarity and the full development of a morally autonomous self actively devoted to the public good of the ethnic nation, a worldview with deep pre-WWI roots in civilian thought and direct global parallels in reformist social movements in Europe. This understanding of mass politics of development through self and society will be shown primarily through the thought and action of army minister general Hayashi Senjūrо̄, patron of ‘control faction’ leader Nagata Tetsuzan, whose political thought and ideals for mass mobilization were impacted by a Meiji-era religious nationalist organization the Nihon Kokkyо̄ Daidо̄-sha, and the pan-Asian group the Ajia Gikai.