午夜剧场

In recent years, the decline of democracy has been repeatedly discussed. For example, according to a report by the American human rights organization Freedom House last year, democracy has been "deteriorating" for 17 consecutive years. Many related books have also been published. Representative works available in Japan include "How Democracies Die" by Harvard University professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt (translated by Daido Hamano, Shinchosha, 2018) and "How Democracy Ends" by Cambridge University professor David Runciman (translated by Shigeki Wakabayashi, Hakusuisha, 2020), both of which are excellent studies.

This book discusses the decline of democracy in a manner different from these representative approaches by political scientists. It is the result of discussions held at the International Historical Comparative Study Group on Populism at the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research from February 2020 to February 2023. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the issues of democratic decline and the expansion of authoritarianism became even more prominent. The problem of declining democracy showed signs of worsening, with few indications of improvement.

In Part 1 of this book, we focused on discussing how the decline and collapse of democracy were observed in European countries during the interwar period, particularly in the 1930s, by examining several national case studies. In the chapters of Part 2, we examine how democracy was nurtured, faced crises, and eventually collapsed in interwar Japan. Furthermore, in Part 3, based on these historical lessons, we discuss the contemporary crisis of democracy from multiple perspectives.

It is an important intellectual endeavor to realize that the crises we face today are not absolute, inevitable, or unique, but that crises have been seen and overcome in various forms throughout history. I hope that this book, which brings together mid-career and young experts in political history and political science to examine these issues, will be widely read and serve as an opportunity to more deeply understand the essence of the crises we must overcome.

Yuichi Hosoya (Co-editor/Author)

午夜剧场 Press

298 pages, 2,200 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.