| Popis: |
This article is a modified version of my last lecture I gave on February 14, 2015 at Kyoto Women's University, where I taught subjects such as the civil society and comparative politics in the Faculty of Contemporary Societies during eight years until last March. My lecture was composed of two parts. In the first one, I spoke of my personal history and academic carrier, trying to explain how I became interested in International Relations and in particular, Argentina. The reason why I decided to choose the course of International Relations when I was a sophomore at the University of Tokyo in 1961 was that US-Japan relations at thet time had become the national concerns due to the revision of the Security Treaty and I also began to study US-Latin American relations, which gave me a chance to get a glimpse of Argentina. But, my keen interests in her were born as a result of my study of political science at Cuyo University in Mendoza, Argentina more than two years when I was a student at the master course of International Relations of the University of Tokyo. Since then, I have been investigating Argentine politics and her international relations using general political theories, although it has not been an easy task to apply an adequate theory to understand the complex realities of Argentina. The second part treated with the activities of an Argentine feminine organization called the Association of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, led by the mothers whose sons and daughters were killed because of their revolutionary ideologies during the military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983. That organization was highly appreciated when Argentina recovered democracy in 1983 as the most stubborn opponent against the military government and as the civil society organization that contributed most to democratization. Howcver, their claim for the restoration of honors toward their children had not been heard until the coming of the Kirchner administration in 2003 by which the mothers were coopted and they became corrupted as the government was. It means that the Association, which had been a very clean organization and similar to European-style civil society was not free from Argentina's traditional political culture such as corruption.Howcver, their claim for the restoration of honors toward their children had not been heard until the coming of the Kirchner administration in 2003 by which the mothers were coopted and they became corrupted as the government was. It means that the Association, which had been a very clean organization and similar to European-style civil society was not free from Argentina's traditional political culture such as corruption. Howcver, their claim for the restoration of honors toward their children had not been heard until the coming of the Kirchner administration in 2003 by which the mothers were coopted and they became corrupted as the government was. It means that the Association, which had been a very clean organization and similar to European-style civil society was not free from Argentina's traditional political culture such as corruption. |
