Finally, let me briefly discuss about the theoretical implication of the cosmopolitan publics that I have employed to analyze the Japanese experience of the global Sixties movement. As discussed, the concept was to capture cultural and communicational aspect of the social movements that cuts across the national border. If resituating this concept within the literature of global and transnational sociology, first of all, it was intended to focus on the aspects that have been neglected in the world-systems analysis (e.g. Wallerstein 1974). The world-systems analysis has long been criticized by its overly economic centered approach. To be sure, after the 1990s, it has been upgraded by incorporating concept of geoculture, nevertheless, it’s usage
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The cosmopolitan publics, however, focus on different aspects of the transnational culture from those of world society theory. That is to say that the cosmopolitan publics focus on the origin of world culture rather than its outcome as well as the agency that actively engage in developing world culture instead of de-emphasizing actors as solely an adopter of the culture. In general, the world society theory’s primary interest is on the diffusion of world culture across the globe and its adoption and implementation by the national and local actors. Hence, their applied perspective is likely to be top-down from the western originated world culture to the non-western institutions. To be sure, some world society scholarships do discuss about the mismatch and the gap between diffused cultural norms and its implementation (i.e. loose coupling), nonetheless, the role of the agency of the national and local actors to alter and develop world culture is limited (Schofer, Hironaka, Frank and Longhofer 2012). The cosmopolitan publics, on the contrary, reject unidirectional perspective and focus rather on the complex interrelationship between top/bottom, global/local and west/non-west binaries. Thus, cosmopolitan publics is a concept to capture the way in which the global and the …show more content…
Both the Beheiren and the JRA cases studies have manifested that it was the face-to-face interactions with the foreign activists that became the crucial source to alter their identity and develop new idea. Thus, the cosmopolitan publics is a space where agency for social change emerges. It is of course the fact that agency does not emerge freely in vacuum without any structural constraints but rather structure and agency are mutually constituted (Giddens 1984). The dissertation, in fact, elucidated the structuration process of the agencies; despite Beheiren and the JRA’s very different path for developing the idea of ethnic minority politics, eventually, the form and method to promote this issue has been structured in the same way to a non-violent and democratic form. And this structuration process of the new social movements is not only the Japanese Sixties but more or less the same with the Sixties movements in the Western Europe and North America. Nonetheless, it was through the carefully investigation of the condition where the agency emerges, the way in which human rights on ethnic minority became the world culture was
The cosmopolitan publics, however, focus on different aspects of the transnational culture from those of world society theory. That is to say that the cosmopolitan publics focus on the origin of world culture rather than its outcome as well as the agency that actively engage in developing world culture instead of de-emphasizing actors as solely an adopter of the culture. In general, the world society theory’s primary interest is on the diffusion of world culture across the globe and its adoption and implementation by the national and local actors. Hence, their applied perspective is likely to be top-down from the western originated world culture to the non-western institutions. To be sure, some world society scholarships do discuss about the mismatch and the gap between diffused cultural norms and its implementation (i.e. loose coupling), nonetheless, the role of the agency of the national and local actors to alter and develop world culture is limited (Schofer, Hironaka, Frank and Longhofer 2012). The cosmopolitan publics, on the contrary, reject unidirectional perspective and focus rather on the complex interrelationship between top/bottom, global/local and west/non-west binaries. Thus, cosmopolitan publics is a concept to capture the way in which the global and the …show more content…
Both the Beheiren and the JRA cases studies have manifested that it was the face-to-face interactions with the foreign activists that became the crucial source to alter their identity and develop new idea. Thus, the cosmopolitan publics is a space where agency for social change emerges. It is of course the fact that agency does not emerge freely in vacuum without any structural constraints but rather structure and agency are mutually constituted (Giddens 1984). The dissertation, in fact, elucidated the structuration process of the agencies; despite Beheiren and the JRA’s very different path for developing the idea of ethnic minority politics, eventually, the form and method to promote this issue has been structured in the same way to a non-violent and democratic form. And this structuration process of the new social movements is not only the Japanese Sixties but more or less the same with the Sixties movements in the Western Europe and North America. Nonetheless, it was through the carefully investigation of the condition where the agency emerges, the way in which human rights on ethnic minority became the world culture was