Yoshino Sakuzo

Yoshino Sakuzo

Yoshino Sakuzō ( Japanese 吉野 作 造 ; born January 29, 1878 in Ōsaki ; † March 18, 1933 ) was a Japanese political scientist, historian and author who, as a political thinker of the Taishō period, was mainly responsible for the formulation of the theory of Mimponshugi ( 民 本 主義 ) or "People's Politics" became known.

Yoshino graduated from Tokyo Imperial University in 1904 . In 1906 he went to China as a private tutor for the son of Yuan Shikai , the most powerful Chinese politician at the time. He returned in 1909 and taught political history and theory at the law faculty of the Imperial University until 1924, initially as an associate professor and from 1914 as a full professor. In 1910 he went on a study trip to Germany, England and the United States for another three years. Upon his return to Japan, he began writing articles on the establishment of a democratic government in Japan, corruption, and universal suffrage .

His best known work, "On the Importance of a Constitutional Government" was written in response to popular belief in the superiority of the Prussian pattern. In this work, Yoshino argues that democracy is also compatible with the concept of sovereignty of the Tennō .

Yoshino's successor on the chair was Oka Yoshitake .

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• S. Noma (Ed.): Yoshino Sakuzō . In: Japan. An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, 1993. ISBN 4-06-205938-X , p. 1760.
• Sources of Japanese Tradition (Vol. 2): 1600 to 2000. William Theodore de Bary, Carol Gluck, and Arthur E. Tiedemann (eds.). New York: Columbia, 2005.

Web links

• e-texts of Sakuzo's work at Aozora bunko (Japanese)

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Yoshino is the family name, Sakuzō the first name.