Seminar Series: Abstract

Political Apostasy: Towards a Theory of Political Change
Prof. Rikki Kersten

The phenomenon of moving from an affiliation with one political position to one that is diametrically opposed to that former position has occurred in a number of countries. In Japan, this has been conceptualised as ‘tenkō’ (political apostasy). While English-language writing on Japanese political thought consigns political apostasy to the prewar era, Japanese writing assumes this to be a transwar political idea that continues to be relevant to Japanese political thought and behaviour today.
In seeking to explain this discrepancy between Japanese and non-Japanese approaches, this paper will deconstruct and problematise the process of definition that has occurred with this concept, particularly from the 1930s to the present. It will be argued that the way in which this term has been defined has obscured the actual dynamics of the act of apostasy, and has constrained the potential of this concept to illuminate the process of political change. The paper will focus on political subjectivity and the Left-Right paradigm as the keys to restoring coherence to this concept in postwar Japan, and will argue that postwar tenkō is indeed a valid concept in Japanese political thought after 1945.