Toward an Alternative Analytic Approach to the Internal Politics of Unions

Abstract  This paper discusses theoretical issues in analyzing the internal politics of unions in Japan. The main argument is that the autonomy of unions' internal political processes from management should not be assumed and that the very development of internal politics of unions may be influenced by the actors with which the unions interact. The paper first reviews previous research on the internal politics of unions in Western countries and discusses a model of internal union politics based on these studies. Second, it reviews previous studies of enterprise unions in Japan and considers why these studies have been indifferent to the internal politics. Third, the paper proposes an alternative approach to internal union politics by synthesizing insights from previous studies of unions and union politics in Western countries and Japan. The approach is based on the concept of the "political space" of unions. Fourth, application of the alternative approach to the development of internal politics of the enterprise union of Yahata Steel (from 1970, Nippon Steel), the largest steel firm in Japan, shows how the union's political space has become more narrow over time. Finally, the paper concludes by noting the relevance of the proposed approach to studies of union-management relations in other industrialized countries.     

Incremental optimization of independent sets under the reconfiguration framework

Journal of Combinatorial Optimization - Suppose that we are given an independent set $$I_0$$ of a graph G, and an integer $$l\ge 0$$ . Then, we are asked to find an independent set of G having the...     

中日书信的文化比较

书信不仅是思想感情、信息的载体,更是文化的载体。中日两国书信在名称、记录符 号、语言、书与工具、信文格式、信纸及信封等诸方面,既在存在着密切的联系,又各有特色。     

How I wonder what you are: Children's songs as a source of mental and internal state information

This study investigated (1) whether children's songs could be potential sources of internal state information and (2) cross-cultural/linguistic differences in the availability of such information. We coded for expressions of mental states and other internal states in 255 English songs, likely accessed by children in the United States, and 255 Japanese songs, likely accessed by Japanese children. The majority of the songs in both samples contained at least one internal state expression, with songs containing four to five tokens and two types of internal state expressions on average. Japanese songs had more types of internal state expressions than English songs when comparing the two samples in proportion scores that controlled for the length of songs. However, differences between English and Japanese songs were negligible in the absolute frequency of tokens and types of internal state expressions, with the exception that Japanese songs were richer in ambiguous internal state expressions.