"Retreatedness" and Political Participation: Learning from Voters

一段时间以来，我注意到日本民众对用政治手段解决个人或社会问题有一种强烈的不安感。他们只是不想卷入任何政治事件。而且，这种“隐退感”正成为一种抑制政治活跃度的力量。本研究试图通过听取普通选民的个人历史来确定这种“退缩”的来源。假设是，他们过去的社会和政治经历影响了他们现在对政治问题的态度。然而，要“找到”一个愿意向一个完全陌生的人（我）讲述他/她的个人“历史”的人并不容易。我使用了电话采访和邮件调查问卷的组合来“接触”这些受访者。首先，电话访谈确定了大约50名愿意回答邮件问卷的人。然后，在归还问卷的人中，我确定了6位候选人进行个人面试。事实证明，这种方法是一种有效的方法，可以“接触”到这些个体，同时在选择过程中保持足够的随机性。从个人访谈中我可以得出两个重要的启示：首先，不仅个人对政治事务的不安程度不同，而且“退避”的性质也在很大程度上不同。没有人以同样的方式感到“退缩”。其次，虽然我的受访者对政治的理解程度各不相同，但他们都有自己理解政治世界的“语法”，他们用同样的“语法”来处理日常事务：他们都是内在一致的。

I have noticed for sometime in Japan that there is a strong sense of uneasiness in using political means to solve personal or social problems, among Japanese citizens. They just do not want to get involved with anything political. And, this sense of "retreatedness" is working as a inhibiting force against political activeness.The present study attempted to identify sources for such "retreatedness" by listening to a personal history of ordinary voters. The assumption was that their social and political past had influenced their present attitude toward political matters.It was not easy, however, to "find" an individual who were willing to speak about his/her personal "history" to a total stranger (me). I used a combination of a telephone interview and a mail questionnaire to "reach" to such respondents. The telephone interview, first, identified some 50 individuals who were willing to respond to the mail questionnaire. Then, among those who returned the questionnaire, I identified 6 candidates for a personal interview. The method proved to be an efficient way to "reach" such individuals while maintaining sufficient randomness in the selection process.Two important implications I could draw from the personal interviews include: First, not only the level of uneasiness in getting involved with political matters varies among individuals, but also the nature of "retreatedness" differs to a great extent among them. No individuals felt "retreated" in the same manner. Second, although the level of political sophistication varies among my interviewees, they all have their own "grammars" to understand the political world, and they use the same "grammars" to deal with daily matters: They were all internally consistent.