일본의 국제화와 정치체제의 변화

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Impact upon Japan"s political system of the collapse of the cold war confrontation and the spread of globalism. The immediate impact of the collapse of the cold war structure was the dissolution of the so-called "1955 system" which was characterized by the ideological confrontation between progressives and conservatives and the beginning of the coalition politics.

The Japanese political system seems to be faced with three system choices. First, it is a neo-conservative political system. The second choice is a bureaucrat-led technocratic political system. The third is a liberal one.

It is beyond doubt that the impact of globalism and IT revolution are reaching far beyond economy by creating new interest groups, constituents and new political leaders. It will certainly strike at the core of the Japanese political system which survived by co-opting political interest groups that arose as the economy and society modernized. But Japan shows a lag between socio-economic change and political change. While IT generation does not have its political channel, old generation is trying its utmost efforts to protect its vested interests in association with conservative political forces. Thus, Japan would be very slow in embracing the globalization impact upon its political system. The outcome would be a compromise system in which conservative elite keeps power by allowing only a limited globalization impact in order to preserve social solidarity.