The Trend Of Democracy In Japan's Taisho Period And Its Influence On Taisho Culture

"Democracy" is one of the important social trends of the Taisho era,it not only has political value,also played a major role in the formation of a mass society and the formation of cultural forms in the Taisho era.The value of this study should be given full attention.In this paper,I considered the thought of the democracy in the Taisho era in modern Japan and discussed the influence on Taisho culture from the viewpoint of cultural studies.This paper consists of 4 chapters.In the first chapter,I discussed domestic and overseas social conditions during the Taisho era.In Chapter 2,various thoughts of "democracy" in the Taisho era were introduced.Among them,Sakuzo Yoshino's "Demoism",Tatsukichi Minobe's "Mikado Organ Thought" and "Civil Doctrine",Soho Tokutomi's "Commonerism" and Kiheiji Onozuka's "popularism" are mainstream,especially,Sakuzo Yoshino's "Demoism".Through analyzing many criticisms that presented in comprehensive magazines by critics,we can find their own view about "democracy".In the third chapter,the core ideas of these thoughts of "democracy" are extracted.Specifically speaking,there are three core ideas of "democracy" : "constitutional politics","opening up trade" and "liberation of women".In chapter 4,I discussed the influence on the culture by the trend of the democracy during the Taisho Period from the viewpoint of culturology.In particular,I introduced a classification method on contemporary culture called "urban culture,consumption culture,information culture" and "global culture" advocated by Mr.Shun Inoue.Then,impact on the culture of the Taisho era will be analyzed from the four aspects of "the birth of the new cultural sphere around the big city","the formation of the public consumption led by the middle class","establishment of information culture targeting national markets" and "departure for foreign culture and internationalization".In short,this paper is useful for deepening the awareness of contemporary Japanese democratic politics and contemporary Japanese culture through analyzing the thoughts of "democracy" in Taisho era and the influence on the Taisho culture.