World War II and the Making of Modern Japan

This panel showcased two of the best research papers that emerged from the undergraduate research seminars on World War II and its legacies in Asia and the Pacific in Fall 2021 (taught by a WCDI member). In taking on major themes in the history of modern Japan, the two presenters applied contemporary sensibilities to assess the long-term impacts of the Allied undertaking between 1945 and 1952 of demilitarizing and democratizing Japan – or a “transitional justice” project, broadly speaking – from which arose a peacefully-inclined, prosperous Japan. The two papers show that, while the initial promises of the Allied remaking of Japan have been largely fulfilled, there still is much work to be done to strengthen Japan’s commitment to protecting the rights of individual citizens – and especially women – on the one hand and, on the other, to reevaluate and redefine the role Japan is to play in the maintenance of international peace and security in the twenty-first century.

Nicole Hamamura (freshman; history major) in her paper titled, “Women’s Rights in Japan,” explored the women’s social, political, and economic standing in contemporary Japan by way of case analyses, and provided an assessment of achievements and shortcomings in the postwar legal reform that guarantees equality between men and women.

Nadine Sauer (freshman; peace studies major) in her paper titled, “The Japanese Self Defense Forces: Their Evolution and Departure from Their Original Goal,” assessed the past, present, and future roles of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces against the backdrop of changing global security environment in and considered their implications to the 1947 Pacifist Constitution of Japan.

This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Japanese Studies and the War Crimes Documentation Initiative (WCDI) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.