Value Politics in Japan and Europe

François Foret is Professor of Political Science at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, and Researcher at Cevipol.Airo Hino is Professor at the School of Political Science and Economics at Waseda University, Japan.

• 1. Introduction - Values in Japan and Europe: A comparative historical, socio-cultural and political perspective 2. Are authoritarian values in Europe and Japan on the rise? 3. An exploration of the salience of authoritarianism in Japanese and European party manifestos 4. Decline of pillarisation in Europe, resilience in Japan? The case of value-based parties: Komeito and Christian democracy 5. From Filter Bubble to Social Divide: Social Polarisation in Europe and Japan 6. Values in Japanese and European news media: The representation of news diversity within a medium and across media 7. Values in the securitization of religion in Japan and Europe 8. The role of Values in Managing Diversity in Europe and Japan 9. Values at the crossroads of politics and the market. The Ghosn affair as a test of corporate transparency and accountability 10. Conclusion

"This book offers rigorous and in-depth comparative discussions on "values politics" in Japan and in Europe. It will be of interest to scholars in international relations and politics, Japanese Studies and to policy makers in both Japan and Europe."Erica Baffelli, University of Manchester, UK"Experience of value upheavals, with an emerging orientation toward authoritarianism and crises of legitimacy on democracy, has been much discussed but independently in both Japan and Europe in the first two decades of the 21st century. Does this actually occur in common or show any difference between Japan and Europe? What groups of citizens are supporting the trend? This fascinating volume, collaborated by joint research of Japanese and European scholars, asks these questions from multiple perspectives using powerful multi-empirical methods with effective use of comparative datasets, shows how much value changes in Japan and Europe are constrained by polarization and diversification in the political, sociocultural, historical, institutional context as well as social network and media. It also examines the differentiation of authoritarian value for different demographic groups in Japan, where Asian vertical social-relational emphasis and harmony-oriented values are amalgamated, and reveals its contrast with Europe, where the values are much linked with ideological fissures."Ken’ichi Ikeda, Doshisha University, Japan