Kokkashugi

Kokkashugi (国家主義, kokkashugi; "statism", "etatism", or "state nationalism") was a statist political ideology that emerged in Japan during the late Meiji period and became one of the foundations of the political order of the Empire of Japan during the early decades of the Shōwa era. In historiography, kokkashugi is generally regarded not as a form of ordinary patriotism but as a coherent political doctrine that defined itself in opposition to liberal democracy, popular sovereignty, political pluralism, and the concept of natural individual rights. Unlike the liberal tradition, which derived political legitimacy from the will of citizens, kokkashugi located the source of sovereignty in the state, embodied in the figure of the Emperor of Japan (tennō) and the historical community of the Japanese nation. The ideology combined elements of conservative traditionalism, ultranationalism, Japanese militarism, imperialism, Pan-Asianism, State Shinto, and a dirigiste economy, presenting itself as a distinctively Japanese alternative to Western liberalism, socialism, and parliamentary democracy. The conceptual core of kokkashugi was the idea of kokutai (国体, "national essence" or "national polity"), which defined Japan as a unique political community united by an unbroken imperial dynasty that, according to official doctrine, traced its origins to the goddess Amaterasu. Through the concept of kokutai, advocates of kokkashugi rejected the distinction between state and society, politics and morality, and public and private life characteristic of liberal democracy. The state was understood not as a legal mechanism created by citizens through a social contract but as an organic and sacred unity of the people, territory, dynasty, and historical tradition. For analytical precision, scholars usually distinguish kokkashugi from several related ideological currents, including Minzokushugi (民族主義, ethnic nationalism), Kokusuishugi (国粋主義, national–cultural traditionalism), and Chōkokkashugi (超国家主義, ultra–statism or radical ultranationalism). In this sense, kokkashugi functioned as the broadest category of Japanese statist nationalism, encompassing both moderate conservative...