In emerging democracies (Central Eastern Europe, Latin America and East Asia) following the global financial crisis, which is referred to as the post-neoliberal period, the reaction to the conventional neoliberal economic policies occurred, and in some countries this led to so-called populist politics. However, the economic policies of individual countries have not necessarily converged in a certain direction. Some countries have continued to adopt neoliberal policies, while others have switched from neoliberal policies. Thus, policy directions differ depending on the situations of each country.

In this research, the following tentative conclusions were obtained through conducting a comparative political-economic analysis of major countries in Japan, Europe and the United States over fiscal consolidation. First, although the fiscal reconstruction discourse imposes strong normative restraints on the politics of developed countries since the 1980s, it is primarily the objective need of fiscal consolidation to define its concrete manifestation. Second, in considering national deviations, it is necessary to consider the extent to which fiscal consolidation targets are institutionalized and in that sense "de-politicized" (Germany is the extreme case, followed by Australia) . Third, in some cases, the politically declared fiscal consolidation looks like a pseudo-controversy, while in other cases, austerity was being conducted only partially, and the "permanent austerity" thesis is not appropriate for every case (Japan and the United States).

This research project asserted the importance of comparative studies between the political development of modern Japan and that of the European non-model countries. It aimed to compare 1) the process of establishment of Party-Government in Japan with that of parliamentary government in Northern Europe, 2) the pattern of governmental changes of the Japanese Party-Governments with that of oligarchic parliamentarianism in Southern or Southeastern Europe, 3) the establishment of authoritarian regimes in Japan and Southern or East-Central Europe, 4) the formation of post-war predominant party systems in the context of centralized welfare states in Japan, France and Italy. Through nine Meetings on the Comparative European Political History, which gathered Japanese and European political historians, we have done several surveys on the relevant themes in comparative politics, the evaluation of the works of pioneers in the field of historical political science, and individual researches.

During the crisis of sovereign debt in the euro zone, the governments of the south Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece) were forced to accomplish an extreme fiscal austerity including the reduction of pension and to achieve an effective level of internal devaluation through reforming their labor market institutions. These policy changes instigated massive protest movements, but the types of political crisis differ among the south European Countries, depending on the negotiating position and the attitude towards troika and creditor countries, on the stability of their party system before the crisis, and on the structural vulnerability of their political system.

Political changes in Lain America, Southern Europe and the Balkans since 19th century have generally been viewed in a superficial and static way from such stereotype as "discrepancy between institution and reality". We conducted some research to make an attempt to reinterpret the political developments in these countries in the context of "dynamic interaction between 'institution'(constitutional regimes) and 'reality'(informal institution)." One of our findings is that the problem of structural political corruption still deep and serious in these countries is not explained by simple social reductionism, but has been maintained changing over time through styles and qualities of core executive or electoral politics.

To clarify differences and similarities witnessed in various attempts to rearrange welfare state and reconstitute citizenship rights, this project has done empirical comparative research on social protection policies of immigrants, their political influences, anti-immigrant movements and their contexts, and the principle and structures of integrating immigrants with the nation. In addition to regularly held workshops, we organized panels in several academic conventions. The achievements of this project are going to be published in two separate books.

In this joint study, we examined democratization and transformation processes,comparing the countries of Central and Eastern Europe with Latin America. Our maincross-regional findings included: (1) despite differences in political and party systems,there were significant commonalities in policies and institution-making; (2) althoughdifferences among countries in each region seem not minor, there was a discerniblesimilar pattern of political variance within both regions. These effects can be explainedby the variable “pull factors” of neoliberal economic policy embedded in the politicalparty system of each country.

The aim of this research project is first to define and demarcate conceptually another type of political regime, "semi-polyarchy" (hereafter SP), and then to scrutinize its distinctive regime mechanism as well as to tease out the dynamics of regime change from semi-polyarchy to polyarchy or that from semi-polyarchy to non-polyarchy through some case studies. In this research we assert that it is theoretically proper and logical to understand polyarchy as a political regime which attains a high degree of "inclusiveness" and "liberalization" as well as sufficient "parliamentarization" of political decision-makers, one of the most important features of which is the establishment of parliamentary cabinet system. From this understanding of polyarchy, we deduce that not only regimes with incomplete "inclusiveness" or "liberalization" (SP I), which Robert A. Dahl called "near-polyarchy," but also relatively inclusive and liberalized though not fully parliamentarized ones (SP II) should be categorized as semi-polyarchy. Regarding the SP I, typical cases are countries which adopted "oligarchic parliamentarism" or Britain in the 19th century, but this research dares to undertake a case study of Portugal before Salazar, since it has never been analyzed from this perspective. As to the SP II, being a regime that can't enjoy stable predominance of parliamentary cabinet over other state institutions (e.g. King/Queen, military, privy council, upper house and so on), it is expected to appear in the breakdown process of polyarchy. But it also emerges as "unconsolidated polyarchy" soon after the installation of polyarchy. This research picks up Poland, Yugoslavia, Estonia, Czechoslovakia as examples of SP II in the interwar Europe which saw many newly founded polyarchies. More comprehensive and fully comparative study of semi-polyarchy has yet to come, but by identifying another type of non-polyarchal regimes which has been totally neglected, this research would surely contribute to the theoretical development of political regime study.

今年度は9月と3月の2度にわたる現地調査・資料収集を中心に研究活動を進めた。調書に記載した当初計画には、初年度の研究目的として、「ポルトガルの権威主義体制の構造と動態、20世紀ポルトガルにおいて、民主化のモメントが弱かった理由などを、歴史的に跡づけるためのサーベイを中心に研究を進める」とあるが、社会科学の諸分野において、ポルトガル研究の現状は依然として発展途上の段階にあり、現地での研究動向を把握し、遂行可能な研究計画を事前に練るという基本的作業に関してさえ、かなりの労力を伴う。史料館へのアクセスは十分とは言えなかったが、この2度の調査を通じて、国立図書館および提携図書館の所蔵文献に関する情報を網羅的に把握することができ、将来的な研究への手がかりが多くつかめたことは大きな収穫であった。 秋の調査旅行の副産物として生み出されたポルトガルの社会保障制度に関するエッセイは、小品とはいえ現地での資料収集がなければ成立しなかったものの1つである。ポルトガルの社会保障に関する知識を、他国との比較を通じてある程度体系的に得る機会を得たことは、単なる現状把握に留まらない意味を持ったと考える。ポルトガルの社会保障は、他国が学習すべきモデルを提供しているわけではないが、ポルトガルの国内政治とEUにおける共通政策の展開は、ポルトガル政府自身がここ数年の方針として強調してきた「社会的ヨーロッパ」の観点を通じて密接に結びついており、この分野がマルチ・ガヴァナンス研究の焦点となり得ることが改めて浮かび上がったからである。今後ともこの分野について継続的に資料を収集し、研究を深めていきたいと考える。 なお、この研究と並行して進めてきた千葉大学・小川有美研究代表科研の設備品購入に際し、20世紀初頭からサラザール体制崩壊期に及ぶ膨大なポルトガル議会資料を立教大学社会科学系図書室に納品できたことは、本研究の遂行にとっても予想外の収穫であったが、上記のような研究上の物理的制約を前提とするならば、長期的には日本におけるポルトガル現代政治研究に貢献する貴重な資産となり得るであろう。

This study is to investigate European societies and politics in terms of "social capital," an important concept in the field of contemporary comparative politics developed above all by Robert A. Putnam. Putnam assumed that a "strong society" with firm social capital like voluntary associations, mutual trust would lead to a "strong state" and a "strong economy," as have often been claimed in the American context. But our findings, based on comparison between the European Union, Germany, France, Southern and Northern Europe, show many different sets of logics behind the civil societies and the public spaces. First, in the European context, not only the social capital but also those things which can be termed "political capital" (partisan organization and sub-cultures) and "institutional capital" such as welfare states and semi-public intermediate channels (which "neo-Huntingtonians" put emphases on) have built comprehensive interdependent/interlocking structures in the public spaces. Second, Internalionalization/Europeanization has ambivalent repercussions on the social capital and democracy. In a case like Germany, the tradition of social (organization) coordination is revived partly in the EU governance structure. On the contrary, fiscal standardization and even the programs of raising civil society activities and NGOs make risk of derogation of autonomous development of civil societies in cases like Central and South Eastern Europe.