Annelise Riles, East Asian law expert, Cornell University law professor, and director of Cornell’s Clarke Program in East Asian Law and Culture discusses the possibility that Japan may reverse its ban on collective defense.
Riles says:
“Hungary moved from democracy to fascism through the skilled deployment of just this sort of legislative politics. I think there is real reason to be concerned about consequences of any revision of Article 96.
“This is especially true given National Prime Minister Abe’s nationalist politics, his family’s fascist history, and his troubling statements on issues such as the comfort women problem.
“The experience in Hungary deserves careful analysis in Japan: in Hungary, a leader with similar political leanings as Abe managed to gain control of both houses through a legitimate democratic election. Then he squeaked by with a victory on the same revision to the procedures for constitutional amendment Abe hopes to promulgate, almost while no one was looking…the result is fascism, sadly, created through perfectly democratic means.”
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