Japan's Power in Domestic Politics

Out of an ethnic Japanese population of 121.7 million in the late1980s, less than 20 thousand Ainu survive as a culturally classifiable population group.

Japan is also highly unified in a religious context. Although the country has no official recount religion, approximately 108 million Japanese atomic number 18 adherents of Shintoism (Paxton, 1989). Thus, approximately 88 percentage of the Japanese population share the same religious orientation. Buddhism is not ill-matched with Shintoism, and approximately 93 million Japanese practice Buddhism (Paxton, 1989). Obviously, a significant overlap exists amid the country's Shinto and Buddhist adherents. Rather than break the country's population, however, the Shinto/Buddhist overlap further unifies the country, unlike the divisions between Protestants and Catholics which plague the British Isles.

While a variety of folkways and accents are found in Japan, these differences are not causes of divisions within the population. A sharp division among the population along language lines, such as the division between Gaelic and English speakers in Britain, is not found in Japan.

The "need to give complaint to government is universal and persisting. Every country . . . must keep up political institutions that enable a small group of politicians to impart authoritative decisions that are binding on the whole of society" (Rose, 198

Thomas, H. A History of the World. New York: harpist & Row, Pub lishers, 1979.

Bendix, R. Nation Building and Citizenship. Berkeley, Califor nia: University of California Press, 1977.

Smith, T. C. "Japan's Autocratic Revolution. Yale Review, 50 (1961): 370383.

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