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party when it was in opposition came to appreciate the value of Komeito
being in the government where it could have a real impact. Thus the position
developed that policy compromises are an inevitable part of a democratic
engagement if a party aims to realise policies. In this way, political philosophy
was less an ideology than a position that informed a set of negotiations.
Positions based primarily on adherence to dichotomous economic positions
had proven ine
ect change, as the dwindling power of the SDP,
the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) and indeed the LDP seemed to indicate.
ectual to e
The support of Soka Gakkai for a political party in Japan is not a generic
phenomenon to be replicated in other countries where Soka Gakkai Interna-
tional (SGI) exists; this political participation has clearly taken shape within a
particular historical context. Soka Gakkai in Japan took its particular his-
toricity as a premise for becoming involved with politics. The modern notion
of the religious and the political as realms best being kept apart, one expres-
sing an outmoded and primitive condition incompatible with the rational and
advanced state of democracy, means that its religious status would always
single it out as an illegitimate political player. This topic illuminates the ubi-
quitous post-Enlightenment idea that religion can be explained away as a
general phenomenon that provides unhelpful, false beliefs, as a more primitive
fallacy that should be replaced by the truth of secular rationalism of which
the political system of democracy is interpreted as the epitome. This twentieth-
century intellectualist approach to religion is a perspective with its own his-
torical trajectory, but religious philosophy and the practice of it here
it less
well within such dominant dichotomies. This does not mean that all members
see it this way; some people agree with the dominant dichotomies about reli-
gion and politics, while others feel stronger the burden of canvassing and wish
Komeito could do a better job of promoting itself. Yet, religious philosophy is
the source of both political ideals and dilemmas; it becomes the source of
commitment to a political position. On the other hand, does this position
exhibit something particularly
'
religious
'
? Is it in fact any di
erent from a
'
position since there is no invocation of a god or
gods, but rather reliance on internal
philosophical
'
or
'
ethical
'
? The social phenomena under
study complicates how we view political processes, what politics are and what
constitutes religion. While the common assumption is that religious philoso-
phy would simplify political answers, or revert them to a more
'
power
'
'
state that is sectarian, it here tends to lead, certainly among young people, to
a clearer appeal to political objectives above sectarian interest. This
'
primitive
'
philoso-
phical
practice also invokes something that seems at times rare set against an
overly commercialised and politicised public sphere, namely an individual
'
'
s
sense of responsibility towards wider political outcomes.
The assumption in Japan that leads to a view of popular religious move-
ments as necessarily undemocratic, anachronisms in modern societies or even
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