Fukuzawa Yukichi’s Datsu-A Ron is a relic of Japan’s modern nationalism. Since its’ publication in the year of 1885, arguably, it had been branded as the very seed that led Japan onto the war path in the Pacific War. Yet, this rather short and dense pre-war Japanese nationalistic theory contains complex layers that may easily complicate its readers’ comprehensions. The purpose of this thesis is to decode the key words that were used in this theory and dissect the layers of this theory’s intentions to the general public for a clear and objective understanding.

Fukuzawa Yukichi’s Datsu-A Ron is a relic of Japan’s modern nationalism. Since its’ publication in the year of 1885, arguably, it had been branded as the very seed that led Japan onto the war path in the Pacific War. Yet, this rather short and dense pre-war Japanese nationalistic theory contains complex layers that may easily complicate its readers’ comprehensions. The purpose of this thesis is to decode the key words that were used in this theory and dissect the layers of this theory’s intentions to the general public for a clear and objective understanding.

My dissertation focuses on the impact of oil trade ties and network on political instability: democratization, civil war onset, and coups. Oil is an important resource to most states, while a few states, especially autocratic states, can produce and export it. This implies that the break of oil trade ties may strategically or economically damage oil-importing states more than oil-exporting states. In the three essays of my dissertation, I argue that oil trade ties allow oil-exporting states to resist to external pressures and encourage oil-importing states to support important oil exporters in order to avoid losing access to a much-needed commodity. In order to measure the effect of oil trade ties on three political instability problems, I employ centrality indices in weighted networks of network analysis. Based on the centrality indices, I measure the effect of oil-importing states on oil-exporters’ abilities to resist international pressures and to obtain external support, and examine how an oil-exporting state’s oil trade ties affect its three political instability phenomena: democratization, civil war onset, and coup risk. Empirical results reveal three ways in which an oil-exporting state’s oil trade ties might affect its political instability; an autocratic oil-exporting state’s oil trade ties reduce external democratizing pressures and hinder democratization; an oil-exporting state’s oil trade ties attract external prewar support for its government, and reduce the likelihood of civil war onset when the exporter experiences external prewar support for its government; an oil-exporting state’s oil trade ties reduce the likelihood of coup.

La thèse consiste en un réexamen des traits saillants des systèmes politique et partisan du Japon d’avant-guerre (1890-1937). L’analyse de données quantitatives et qualitatives sur l’achat de voix et les pratiques d’ingérence des gouvernements dans le déroulement des campagnes électorales démontre que la première pratique était massive et généralisée et les secondes systématiques. L’achat de voix massif et généralisé et les pratiques d’ingérence étaient liés par une relation de complémentarité fonctionnelle, l’ingérence consistant le plus communément en la répression partiale des fraudes électorales. Le système partisan s’ordonnait autour de ce binôme d’expédients. Les acteurs collectifs de ce système furent des spécimens du type « parti-cartel, stratarchique, clientélistes et attrape-tout », des partis qui n’activaient pas de clivage sociologique ou idéologique. Le binôme d’expédients structurants eut de nombreuses conséquences systémiques et constitua la plus puissante des modalités de la politisation des rapports sociaux. En conclusion, les résultats de l’examen de la pratique de l’achat de voix dans le Japon d’avant-guerre sont confrontés à ceux que proposent des études de cette pratique en d’autres sociétés, les États-Unis d’Amérique et le Royaume-Uni au XIXe siècle ou, au XXe siècle, des pays d’Amérique Latine et Taiwan. / This thesis is a reappraisal of salient features of the political and party systems in prewar Japan (1890-1937). Analysis of qualitative and quantitative data on vote buying and governmental interference in electoral campaigns demonstrate that the first practice was massive and generalized; and that the second was systematic. These two practices were tied by a functional relationship since the most common form of governmental interference consisted in a partisan bias in the repression of electoral frauds. The core of electoral politics was a functional set of expedients. The collective actors of this system are characterized as specimens of the “cartel party stratarchic, clientelistic, catch-all” type, many political parties that did not activate any sociological or ideological cleavage. The two electoral expedients bore many systemic consequences and were the most powerful ways of the politicization of social relationships in this society. The concluding chapter is a comparative examination of the characteristics and properties of vote buying in prewar Japan to those of the same practice in other societies, the 19th century United States of America and Britain, or 20th century Latin America and Taiwan.