Prof. Ryusaku Yamada of Faculty of International Liberal Arts gave a presentation at the Consortium for European Political Studies

From May 20 to 23, Prof. Ryusaku Yamada of Waseda University Faculty of International Liberal Arts gave a presentation at a workshop of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) held at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic.

ECPR is an international research network in the field of political science, known as a place where researchers from around the world, mainly from Europe, gather to share the latest research results. This workshop also saw lively discussions on a wide range of topics, including political theory, comparative politics, and international relations.

Professor Yamada participated in a group called "Paradigms in Democratic Studies." On the first day, May 20, he gave a presentation titled "Revisiting the Democratic Personality from a Non-Western Perspective: Insights from the Buddhist Concept of 'Dependent Origination'."

In this study, we reconsider the importance of the theory of "democratic personality," which is difficult to deal with in institutional studies of democracy, and propose the possibility of depicting a democratic human image that is different from individualistic liberalism by approaching it from the Buddhist view of "auspiciousness." At that time, he took the "humanistic code of conduct" mentioned in the peace proposal of Professor Daisaku Ikeda, the founder of the university, as an example, and discussed the following three points as norms to support democratic behavior.

(1) "Self-discipline that allows us to recognize that we too can become evil through the connections we make with others"

(2) "Engagement in active dialogue that sees conflict as a form of connection"

(3) "Incrementalism stems from treating others as concrete human beings, not as abstractions."

Professor Yamada said, "The workshop participants gave us much more positive feedback than we expected. In particular, they sympathized with the idea that 'dialogue is a struggle, and struggle is also a sign of connection.' It is always difficult to express in English Buddhist concepts that are hard to put into words for political theory, and ideas that do not exist in the Western world. Nevertheless, at a time when non-Western perspectives are required in democratic theory, we have been able to take the first step in this tentative essay."

Faculty Information

Professor

Ryusaku Yamada

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Specialized Field

Political theory (modern democratic theory), history of political thought

Research theme

Radical Democracy (Participation, Deliberation, Citizenship), Karl Mannheim's Political and Social Thought