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Comparing Protest and Conflict: A Time‐Series Analysis of Peasant Unrest in Japan, 1800‐1877
Author(s) -
Nomiya Daishiro
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
international journal of japanese sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.133
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 1475-6781
pISSN - 0918-7545
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-6781.1998.tb00057.x
Subject(s) - peasant , unrest , social conflict , social unrest , politics , feudalism , class conflict , political economy , antecedent (behavioral psychology) , internal conflict , sociology , political science , development economics , social psychology , psychology , economics , law
The objective of this study is to explore the mechanisms of peasant political protest and social conflict in nineteenth‐century Japan. While political protest and social conflict have often been referred to as constituting two major categories of peasant unrest throughout feudal Japan, past studies on nineteenth‐century peasant uprisings, based mainly on a class conflict paradigm, did not treat them as such. This study aims at examining differential mechanisms between protest and conflict, and at assessing the applicability of the class conflict paradigm. A time‐series analysis is performed using the annual data of peasant uprisings and antecedent socioeconomic and political conditions during the period 1800‐1877. The study results strongly suggest that differential mechanisms between political protest and social conflict existed in the nineteenth‐century, and that the applicability of a class conflict paradigm is, at the very least, dubious. Based on the results, combined with historical‐contextual knowledge, an alternative explanation is also suggested.