This essay work is dedicated to achieving a comparative vision between Spain and Japan in the modernization process of the 19th and 20th centuries. As is well known, since the nineteenth century the world began to suffer a deep and definitive transformation in all areas which usually is denominated “modernization”, driven by the impact of the Industrial Revolution of English origin and the French Revolution in the economic and political field, from which the main argumentative topics of the present time originate.
Attempts to modernize the three historical entities mentioned above led to the construction of the nation-state (or nation). Nevertheless, Spain and Catalonia held several difficulties to solve because of its condition as peripheral country of Europe. Meanwhile, Japan participated in the process of global modernization from a totally peripheral position in this era of absolute European hegemony. In this sense, one of the objectives of this comparative study is to analyze the modernization of the three cases studied that maintained, as one of its links, the fact of remaining within the scope of a “peripheral” zone.
In order to achieve a more vital contrast in this comparative study, we have suggested that the period analyzed be limited to the stage between the last three decades of the nineteenth century and the outbreak of the Great War (1914) for two main reasons:
In the first place, regarding the initial point of this analysis, in the case of Japan, the first fundamental attempt to adapt to this process of modernization of Western origin is marked by a specific date: the year 1868 in which the Meiji Restoration was established , ending by abandoning feudalism with the definitive rise of isolationism. On the other hand, Spain and Catalonia, within the Spanish framework, undertook political and economic modernization, based on the scope of classical liberalism, gradually since the beginning of the 19th century. After the tumultuous Sexenio Revolucionario the regime of the Restoration began (1874). In other words, with a difference of 6 years, in the 70’s of the eight hundred, Spain (Catalonia) and Japan experienced modernization in the form of “restoration”.
In addition, the Japanese restorationist regime was consolidated with the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution (1889-1945). At the same time, the Canovasian Restoration, with the Constitution of 1876, maintained its basic framework until 1923. That is, despite the socio-political internal instability, the two “Restorations” did not ask for the elasticity to neutralize said invertebration. However, secondly, in the medium term, the repercussions caused by the First World War on all the evolutionary features of Spain (Catalonia) and Japan were undeniable.
Regarding the structuring of the chapters, the present investigation focuses on the four aspects when considering modernization as a process of the configuration of the nation-state: the economy, politics (democratization), nationalism and the labour movement (social conflicts).
The work is fundamentally bibliographic. In the fundamental character of a comparative study between two nation-states under construction, among which the cultural difference is evident and evident, research through the bibliography offers us broader perspectives, indicating new research tracks, despite decreasing the intensity of analysis.
Apart, from a personal point of view, this work focuses its first steps in the history of Spain (Catalonia), which forces me to choose this analytical way to understand the widest range of stories crisscrossed between these two nations.
