 Okay, coming back to representation and participation. So, we have the two houses in the parliament. Let's talk about the election systems, electoral systems, which produce members. For the House of Representatives, the lower house. We have a new system, 2000s, mixed member proportional system that is, which is a combination of single member district plus proportional representation. Looks like which country? Bravo. Okay. 300 districts, members of which are elected on a first past the post. Winner takes all single member district plurality system. And another 180 members through the party list system. So, it's a combination of both. Therefore, the voter or voters cast two votes for candidates in your running, in your district, and basically the party you'll be voting for. The House of Counselors, it's a two track parallel system. 96 party list based on proportional representation. So, if it is a party list, it's a proportional representation. And another 146 members, single non-transferable vote. So, it's basically the, you know, part of it is proportional representation. Part of it is single member district plurality system. LDP had been losing its hegemony, starting off with the late 1990s, early 1990s. And then things have been changing. And as I've shown, 2009, LDP has really lost its grip, or so we thought. Because it has picked up in 2012 later on. So, there has been some dissatisfaction with politics, which have translated into lower levels of turnout. Turnout had been high in Japan, compared to advanced industrialized standards, advanced industrialized country standards. But it has been going down because of dissatisfaction with politics, predominant party system, LDP losing power, but at the same time, there has been increasing dissatisfaction with the predominant party regime too. What kind of a democracy are we talking about? Or so the electorate started to think about. Political culture, identity and citizenship. We have an ethnically and culturally homogenous country, 98% something Japanese in terms of ethnicity. And more than 85%, about 85% have adopted the religion Shinto. So, we have a largely homogenous ethnically, but also culturally and religiously homogenous country. And there has been nationalistic identity before World War II. So, Meiji period, nationalism, strong army, strong nation. Remember this, huh? Sounds like which of the countries we've seen. Strong army, strong nation. Germany, okay? So pre-World War II, two nationalist identity or nationalistic identity, and they have attempted to colonize Asia, China, Sino-Japanese, Russo-Japanese wars. So both China and Russia. So late 19th century, early 20th century, have seen wars between major powers in the region. Okay? So religion not so important. There has been a separation of state and religion. So religion is not a cleavage, is not a dividing line, it's not a fault line in Japanese politics anyway. And we have a very well-educated workforce with nine years of compulsory education, almost for many, many decades following World War II. One way of cultivating national identity is through textbooks, nationwide or, you know, nationally used textbooks. You know, citizenship, civic education, but also nationality, nationalism, to basically to educate the workforce through national textbooks. So national textbook program had been an important stronghold in this respect. And if I am not wrong, Japan had been... The country had been enjoying the highest levels of circulation in newspapers. It is still true to this day if I have been... So newspapers people are interested in world affairs, people are interested in what's happening around them. But despite this, there has been turnout declining. And there is voter, in a way, not yet voter burnout, but dwindling figures in terms of participation in... Social movements and protests, rather than... Oh, okay, yes. Not in education, not in labor force. Right? So there is the expectation that Japan will have a larger share of the demographic category, neither in education nor in workforce. Is that what you've read? I haven't seen that. I wouldn't expect that, but let me look into it. I really don't know this situation. I would think that Japan would not be one of the countries in which we have a percentage of the demographics between 15, age 15 and 24, neither in education nor in the labor force. I mean, Japan would not strike me, strike as one of the countries who would have high levels of, in terms of percentages, high shares of the workforce to me. I know the Turkish case. Does anybody know what this figure has been for the past 10 years or so? We have a youth bulge in the country. You know, those who are aged between 15 and 24, so it's been expanding, and it'll expand until 2023, the centennial of the Republic. But by about the end of the first decade of the 20th century, 21st century, I'm sorry, the figure was about 30%. So 30% was, 30-something percent was in education. 30-something percent was in the labor force, and another 30-something percent was nowhere in the books, neither in education nor in the workforce. So I wouldn't think Japan would be one of those countries, but let me look into that too. I'm curious. Thank you for sharing that with us. So citizens generally grumble rather than publicly protesting. One exception is right-wing populism or right-wing nationalism. So there has been some right-wing nationalists who have been protesting against what's happening. Environment has been another issue of social movements, protest movements, reckless industrialization, was seen to have led to Minamata disease, which is basically mercury poisoning. People are concerned with nuclear power. People are concerned with climate change. Whaling still continues, hunting whales, and use of nuclear power for energy. After even Fukushima, Japan is not building any new nuclear plants, but it has been an issue over the past more than 20 years, especially after Chernobyl, late 1980s, early 1990s. Former outcasts, they're forced to do work that was considered unclean. This is abolished, but prejudice continues. Prejudice persists against those lower ranks in the social stratification. So we can't really talk about equality and integration of the former outcasts in this deeply divided, socially stratified society. Women, there have been a post-World War II goal of emancipation, which is enfranchisement, suffrage, so right to vote, right to stand in elections, and there have been organizations to enhance the status of women in this particular period, but discrimination does persist. Gender-based discrimination still persists, and employment law, labor law, does not provide any specific penalties to fight against discrimination on the base of gender. So women, discrimination against women, especially in the labor force, still persists even to this day, which is, again, kind of an awkward situation when you compare this country as an advanced industrialized country with good credentials with respect to its democracy and especially rule of law. Yes, there is the predominant party regime, but rule of law indicators for Japan are quite high. You know, they rank among the highest in advanced industrialized societies. Ethnic minorities, the Ainu, the Aboriginals, which have a distinct language and culture, they were forced to abandon hunting, they fell into poverty, ignored by the government until the late 1990s. So there had been a problem with respect to that, that particular group, Okinawans, which were in a similar situation with the Ainu. Their identity had been weakened over time, so it presents a problem with respect to how Japan is governing diversity. And Koreans, they, I mean, some of them migrated, you know, voluntary migration, some of them, you know, back in the 30s, forced migration, they were given citizenship if and when one of their parents was of Japanese origin, or they were, you know, Japan had been, its citizenship regime had been based on Yus Sanguini. There are two regimes, citizenship regimes, Yus Soli and Yus Sanguini. Any ideas, what these, any idea what these two terms stand for? Yus Soli? It's civic, it's based on land, based on blood, ok? So as long as your parents are, one of your parents, at least, is Japanese in origin, then you were given, I mean, Koreans were given citizenship. For Turkey, which of the two sounds like the Turkish system? Yus Sanguini, ok. Finally, current challenges. Of course Fukushima had been an immense, I mean, it hit immensely to Japanese economy, Japanese politics, Japanese society, Japanese psyche. So it's very much alive in contemporary political discourse. Citizens protest against nuclear power plants or nuclear power in general. So it has been, you know, dominating the agenda to a certain extent. Another problem is aging, which has been a major concern not only to people but also to governments. Increasingly longer life expectancy at birth, leading 80 years of age, even for males, even for men, and a low birth rate means that we will have a higher dependency ratio. Those who be working will be supporting those who are outside the labor force. So when your future workers is contracting and when your future dependent population is expanding, it becomes financially, not only financially but also socially difficult to sustain your model of society, your model of welfare, your model of, or your economic model. So labor force has been declining in terms of numbers and will be declining, will continue to decline. Health care costs rise. So some municipalities back in the late 1990s, I believe early 2000s, have been giving subsidies, rewards to basically encourage births. But this didn't have much impact. This incentive structure did not have much impact on fertility decisions of prospective or current parents. Relations with the US had always been a top foreign policy goal. The US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty now is seen to be beneficial to both sides, especially beneficial to Japan. And Japan had been increasingly participating in missions for peacekeeping and the alliance between the US government, I mean Bush administration and the Japanese government back in the early 2000s on Iraq had been damaging these relations in a certain way. Cultivation of ties with East Asian neighbors. The relationships between Japan and East Asian neighbors had been improving but there have been still tensions. But still we still have I believe textbooks emphasizing Japanese, culture Japanese traditions in a more nationalistic ways that we are different, we are better. So as long as those continue in the educational system, the ties, the relationships between Japan and her neighbors will continue to remain problematic. Decline of Japan's global economic power, competitiveness of Japan when I was growing up, 70s, 80s, Japan had always been number one. It's now ranking around, it's rankings hover around 20 or so. So 20th most competitive nation in the world. So after making it to the top position in terms of competitiveness, the Japanese economy, late 1980s, early 1990s, late 1990s East Asian crisis, the first bubble, then the East Asian crisis and the Great Recession World Financial Crisis, late 2000s, 2007, 2008, 2009 has been really rocking the Japanese economy. So its competitiveness has been losing its previous economic wealth, economic power and its competitive edge. So this is important to remember. Japanese as a model of East Asian style democracy, we have a passive citizenry, monopoly of power by one party, LDP and bureaucracy. So the executive has also been very influential in the Japanese economic miracle, in the making of the Japanese economic miracle and greater emphasis on growth sometimes at the expense of democracy or individual rights, individual rights and liberties, human rights, which were all agreeable to Confucian thought and which were to a certain extent in the past had been used to legitimize, to justify repressive governments. But this is also changing to a certain extent, especially with the LDP losing its grip on domestic politics, on power, on authority of decision making. With all these changes we have the Japanese model of society, Japanese model of representation, Japanese model of participation, Japanese model of democracy, rule of law, well not so much rule of law but civil rights and liberties. These seem to be changing a little. Citizens are not as passive anymore. They not only grumble, they also increasingly protest. So all of these are early 21st century, all of these are changing to a certain extent. And after decades of stability, political stability, economic stability, past two decades have been quite rough, two and a half decades, 25 years by now almost, or in fact more than 25 years. It's been quite difficult for Japan. Yeah, it's more than 25 years, late 1980s with the bubble and the reaction to the bubble. And then came the East Asian crisis. Then came the Great Recession. So all of these are having reverberations, ramifications, most of which are rather adverse. And we'll see how Japan continues under Shinzo Abe. There has been some stability with respect to Abe's economic tools, Abe's economic model. And the way the country had been running in terms of democracy, in terms of rule of law, in terms of civil rights and liberties, the political system. But it seems that we have a less certain future for the Japanese compared to 25 years ago. Okay, that ends the Japanese case. This also wins this class.