Comparing Protest and Conflict: A Time-Series Analysis of Peasant Unrest in Japan, 1800-1877

Abstract  The objective of this study is to explore the mechanisms of peasant political protest and social conflict in nineteenth-century Japan. While political protest and social conflict have often been referred to as constituting two major categories of peasant unrest throughout feudal Japan, past studies on nineteenth-century peasant uprisings, based mainly on a class conflict paradigm, did not treat them as such. This study aims at examining differential mechanisms between protest and conflict, and at assessing the applicability of the class conflict paradigm.
A time-series analysis is performed using the annual data of peasant uprisings and antecedent socioeconomic and political conditions during the period 1800-1877. The study results strongly suggest that differential mechanisms between political protest and social conflict existed in the nineteenth-century, and that the applicability of a class conflict paradigm is, at the very least, dubious. Based on the results, combined with historical-contextual knowledge, an alternative explanation is also suggested.