Modern and Contemporary Governments and Towns, Villages, and Settlements : A Structural Change in the 1930s(Symposium-2005- Concerning Rural Communities in Modern and Contemporary Japan)

The author undertook this study to help resolve issues in the socioeconomic history of modern and contemporary village settlements in Japan. Analyses were made of their administrations and policies that responded to capitalism; industrial association-induced business; and social relationships between Japan's national government, towns and villages (administrative village), and village settlements in regard to social issues. The results are summarized as follows: [1] In early modern Japan, towns and villages were established as official local government units with important roles. They consisted of various types of settlements, including "Mura," named by the author, and these settlements corresponded to "agricultural settlements" comparable to the current census of agriculture and forestry. The historical definition of the local governmental system was established in a way that included the development of credit unions of settlements and the member election of a village assembly by the Mura unit. This is a direct criticism of Saito et al's study on self-governing village settlements. This study assumed "Oaza" (almost equal to modern villages governed by "Han," or prefecture) to be a modern and contemporary village settlement, resulting in an extremely fixed concept of a rural community. [2] The author showed the historical meaning of the 1930s from the aspect of village settlements. A structural change in the scheme of towns and villages and in agricultural policies leading to the present situation occurred in this period. This change brought on a reorganization of political relations between towns and villages and village settlements, a revised scheme of village settlements, and a request for villages to perform a new function. Consequently, the 1930s was a starting point for the relationship between the nation and towns and villages and village settlements; i.e., it may be called the establishment of towns and villages if the system of town and village in the Meiji Era was called the formation of towns and villages. [3] The author revealed the effects of the organization of agricultural cooperative associations on the structure of Mura. This confirms the appropriateness of village function. A village settlement managed by an agricultural cooperative association in the Hokkaido district, which was moderately flexible and free from the tradition of seigneur governance, adjusted to modern capitalism in the 1930s better than to Mura in the Kinki district, which conformed to Oaza. All these conclusions reveal the theoretical and empirical issues of this study on self-governing village settlements.