The centenary of a prominent post-war politician, former JapanesePrime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone was observed on May 27, 2018. The personalityof Nakasone attracts attention due to his being anew type of politician who lefta significant footprint on the political history of Japan. Many rightfully link thepolitical success of Nakasone to his phenomenal capacity for politicalmaneuvering, and the ability to gain support of stronger political opponents andto establish temporary unions, which resulted in his nickname, the “WeatherVane”. In contrast to his predecessors, Prime Minister Nakasone was actively usingmass media to create a favorable image in the eye of the public and to appeal tohis voters directly. In fact, Nakasone was the first leader of the LiberalDemocratic Party to transform his personal popularity with voters into a powerfulinternal political resource in the party. Nakasone is the example of a successful reformer, whose undertakings set thetone to the national development in the field of administrative, tax, and socialaffairs and education for many years ahead. The Nakasone reforms are mentionedin many textbooks on public politics and governance as remarkably productiveand effective against the backdrop of unsuccessful reforms held in a number ofEuropean countries in the same period. In fact, Nakasone’s neo-conservatism relied on economic nationalism: theestablishment of Japan as a global economic leader that could dictate its termson the world. A major idea of Nakasone’s neo-conservatism was that Japanshould stop following examples of other nations’ patterns others but becomefully politically and spiritually independent. He believed that, apart fromstopping to borrow foreign practices, Japan should develop into an attractiverole model tobe followed by others. In that sense, Nakasone’s neo-conservatismwas an impressive call for internationalizing Japanese cultural and spiritualvalues. Nakasone’s institutional reforms faced fierce resistance from the governmentbureaucracy and, despite partial success, were not fully implemented. In the fieldof diplomacy, many initiatives of Nakasone aimed at increasing the political roleof Japan on the world stage remained unfinished during his Premiership.

The article presents a non-traditional approach to evaluation ofJapan’s soft power in the context of its humanitarian cooperation with East Asianstates (primarily, China and South Korea) and also Russia. The characteristicfeatures of current Japan’s soft power and the historic prerequisites for thedevelopment the Japanese foreign policy of this sphere are analyzed. In theauthor’s opinion, there is no alternative of Japan’s soft power to hard powercurrently employed by other countries of East Asia. The article stresses thesuccesses of Japanese policy of simulating the inflow of foreign tourism andanalyzes the reasons for the steady growth in the number of tourists arriving inJapan. Recent statistics shows the predominance of Chinese and South Koreansamong foreign guests, both tourists and expats, with the mostly negative attitudeto China and South Korea among the Japanese citizens. The deterioration of thedemographic situation in Japan is also marked: the percentage of foreigners isgrowing, which prompts the Japanese to adjust. The article highlights humanitarian cooperation between Japan and Russiain the Cross-year Year of 2018, which was initiated by the country’s leaders toboost contacts in a broad range of areas. It indicates a decline in the bilateraltrade in the past five years and points a low level of mutual tourism. There aredifferent reasons for Russia and Japan for insignificant number of touriststravelling to the partner country. The antipathy of most Japanese toward Russiais a negative factor for bilateral relations. In conclusion, the author elaborateson the possible ways of enhancing the Russo-Japanese relations in the contextof the highlighted issues. The article’s objective is to inform experts working in relevant areas aboutsuccessful Japanese projects with the aim of borrowing some useful Japanese practices of soft power and outbound tourism in relations with other countries.This experience could be beneficial for Russia.

The main problems of political socialization of Japanese youth arestudied in the paper. According to the author’s point of view, participation inthe election process, youth movements, and a growing interest in internationalissues are the principal trends and the main indicators of Japanese youth’spolitical activity and political socialization of young people in contemporaryJapanese society. Political socialization is the transmission of political culture to new generationsof citizens in a given society and it includes such activities as voting campaigns,attending meetings, joining political parties, taking part in political discussions,еtс. Whether young people have ability to quickly adapt to the changingcircumstances of the world around them depends on the process of politicalsocialization. The difficulties that characterize the Japanese youth’s politicalsocialization process during the last decade and its outcomes have becomeespecially evident now - young people exhibit a less developed sense of civic duty,and take the obligations of citizenship more lightly than older generations. Oneof the factors influencing young people’s tendency to be engaged in civic andpolitical activities may be the fact that the traditional mobilizing institutions ofpolitics in Japan are not especially interested in reaching out to young people. Inthe article the main problems of political socialization of Japanese youth areexamined. Using the data from large-scale surveys of Pew Research Center andsome data of Mainichi Shimbun surveys carried out in 2017, the author analyzeswhether young Japanese people are active participants of political process or playthe role of unconcerned spectators.

The purpose of this article is to research the continental prototypesfor Fujiwara-no Kamatari Biography (the main part of “Toshi Kaden”/“TheFujiwara House Biography”). Kamatari was the key political figure of his timeand one of the Japanese statehood fathers. Whereas the Chinese prototypes arewell investigated, we could not say so about the Korean ones. However, Kamatariis compared with both Chinese and Korean statesmen. It is for this reason, thatthe paper focuses on the analysis of the possible Korean prototypes.

Kaifuso, the very first poetical collection of the verse by Japanesepoets, dates back to the year 751 (Nara period) and had been composed prior toMan’yoshu. However, this collection of early kanshi isn’t often analyzed as animportant source for historical or poetical studies. The article attempts todemonstrate Kaifuso’s potential for academic studies in these fields and analyzenot only poetical value of certain poems, but also political agenda of its compilerby taking a closer look at the traditional biographies of four princes, which areincluded in the collection.

The article traces how the image of the Ainu formed by Japaneseintellectuals in 18thand early 19thcenturies influenced the formation of Japan’spolicy towards this ethnic minority in the Meiji period (1868-1912).