The Japanese Mafia: Yakuza, Law, and the State. The Japanese mafia - known collectively as yakuza - has had an extensive influence on Japanese society over the past fifty years. Based on extensive interviews with criminals, police officers, lawyers, journalists, and academics, this is the first academic analysis in English. 10/15/01, p21. “The significance of the yakuzalies not in what they are doing, but in what the Japanese state is not doing: creating an effective, law-based culture. The yakuza fill a vacuum created by government inaction. The Japanese state has not been very effective at creating clear-cut rules for business, the study argues. Instead, it has.
On a fall afternoon in 1919, several dozen yakuza bosses—heads of Japanese mafia groups—climbed into cars at a Tokyo hotel. The caravan of smartly dressed men then proceeded to the Home Ministry for an appointment with top ministry officials, including the home minister himself. This meeting between Home Minister Tokonami Takejirō and Kansai-area bosses eventually led to the founding of an influential nationalist group of the interwar era: the Dai Nihon Kokusuikai (Greater Japan National Essence Association). What made this event notable was not just the seemingly remarkable cooperation between yakuza and a minister of state, but its coverage in the media as relatively unremarkable. Newspapers listed the names of all the participating yakuza bosses, and the tone of the published articles was utterly mundane and matter-of-fact.1
This collaborative moment in October...
© The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected].
You do not currently have access to this article.
On a fall afternoon in 1919, several dozen yakuza bosses—heads of Japanese mafia groups—climbed into cars at a Tokyo hotel. The caravan of smartly dressed men then proceeded to the Home Ministry for an appointment with top ministry officials, including the home minister himself. This meeting between Home Minister Tokonami Takejirō and Kansai-area bosses eventually led to the founding of an influential nationalist group of the interwar era: the Dai Nihon Kokusuikai (Greater Japan National Essence Association). What made this event notable was not just the seemingly remarkable cooperation between yakuza and a minister of state, but its coverage in the media as relatively unremarkable. Newspapers listed the names of all the participating yakuza bosses, and the tone of the published articles was utterly mundane and matter-of-fact.1
This collaborative moment in October...
© The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected].
You do not currently have access to this article.