Nichibunken's NIHU Transdisciplinary Projects

　An international collaborative research project titled “Global Histories of Constitutionalism: Global Exchanges of Ideas and Entanglements, c. 1850s–1930s,” led by Egas Bender de Moniz Bandeira (Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory) and Banu Turnaoğlu (Sabancı University/Cambridge University), is currently underway. The project aims at rethinking the global history of constitutionalism in the period from the mid-nineteenth century up to the 1930s. This was a critical era in terms of institutional innovation, which saw constitutions become a well-nigh indispensable element of statehood.

　This observation is equally applicable to Japan at the time. Furthermore, Japan played a significant role in shaping this global trend of constitutionalism. In her acclaimed work, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions and the Making of the Modern World (Liveright Pub. Corp., 2021), the renowned Princeton University historian Linda Colley points out that, “[Japan]’s 1889 constitution was the first to be implemented in East Asia, one more confirmation that this political device was becoming a worldwide phenomenon” (p. 362).

　This symposium will invite participants from the aforementioned international research project as well as Professor Linda Colley to discuss the role and significance of Japan in the global history of constitutionalism. Through these discussions, the symposium aims to determine how the history of the Japanese constitution can contribute to an international understanding of constitutionalism, while simultaneously exploring its potential as a global intellectual resource.

　This event, organized as part of the “Global Histories of Constitutionalism: Global Exchanges of Ideas and Entanglements, c. 1850s–1930s” project, will be co-hosted by the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken): the International Research Promotion Division, the Uehiro Research Division for Global Japanese Studies of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (U-GJS), and the Nichibunken Collaborative Research Group, “Knowledge in State Formation: Japan in Comparative Constitutional History.”

The outcomes of this international collaborative project will be compiled into a volume currently under contract with Cambridge University Press. The book will bring together more than twenty relevant case studies from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, and so provide a comparative-historical, and theoretical framework for the study of constitutionalism from a global perspective.