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The previous discussion centered on the essential features of Reconciliation Studies, particularly the convergence of universal values and national grounded collective memory, which emerged in response to processes of democratization. The methodological approaches, foundational concepts, and key areas of inquiry within Reconciliation Studies may be synthesized into the following five core dimensions.

1. Transdimensional Integration of Domestic and International Politics
   Reconciliation Studies challenges the traditional dichotomy between domestic and international political spheres by analyzing how the collective subject known as the “people” (kokumin) is continuously reconstituted. Emphasis is placed on the dynamic nature of national identity, which enables integration across political dimensions previously treated as analytically distinct.
2. Interdisciplinary Theory and Empirical Foundation
   A comprehensive theoretical foundation is constructed by synthesizing insights from multiple academic disciplines, complemented by empirical research through both fieldwork and historical case studies. The observation and analysis of ongoing reconciliation-related phenomena are also central to the discipline’s empirical approach.
3. Memory, Emotion, and Values as the Basis of Democratic Legitimacy
   Modern democracy functions on the premise of shared national emotion as well as representation and majority rule. Reconciliation Studies examines the complex interplay between collective historical memory and universal values—such as human rights, welfare, and freedom—that shape and are shaped by national emotion. These elements together form the normative and emotional infrastructure of democratic legitimacy.
4. Subjective Complexes and Political Functionality
   The triad of national emotion, memory, and values—although subjective in nature—functions as a source of soft power in international politics and as a legitimating force in domestic contexts. These elements influence each other reciprocally. Reconciliation Studies seeks to render these subjective constructs analyzable by treating them as socially functional phenomena, thereby enabling a methodological approach that bridges domestic and international domains.
5. Transnational Networks and Sites of Friction
   Actors such as politicians, media professionals, scholars, and civil society organizations operate within transnational networks. The value systems, emotional orientations, and historical narratives they circulate may at times conflict with those embedded in national identity. Reconciliation Studies investigates how these frictions are structured by, and structure in turn, power dynamics and economic interests.

Constitutional law should be a familiar discipline to readers of Contemporary Law. While constitutional law assumes the sovereignty of the people as a foundational principle, the historical and political construction of the “people” as a collective subject often remains insufficiently examined. Despite being composed of countless anonymous individuals, the “people” is presumed to function as a unified collective. Questions arise as to how such a construct fulfills social functions, and how it has been ideologically and politically shaped within the context of modernization and industrial development. In educational settings, such inquiries are rarely raised; history is frequently presented as a linear narrative of events and figures, under the assumption that the nation and its people have existed since antiquity.

Similarly, international relations theory, particularly in its realist variant, has tended to treat the internal composition of the nation-state as analytically separate from considerations of power, national interest, and international law. Although Nationalism Studies—following the work of Benedict Anderson—has emphasized the constructed and imagined nature of the nation, little attention has been paid to how the mechanisms of national imagination are embedded within, and respond to, domestic inequality and shifts in international power structures, including the increasing significance of soft power and normative influence.

Reconciliation Studies, while organizing the International Association for Reconciliation Studies in cooperation with national and international researchers, is also open to politicians and diplomats, historians, cultural figures such as media and education, and civil activists as actors who support national feelings and memories. Rather than advocating for reconciliation per se, the field seeks to create dialogic spaces that include both proponents and critics of reconciliation, particularly those who argue from the standpoint of justice. It is also an exploration of the political structures that make people passionate. The emotions, memories, and values that make up the people, and those excluded from them will also be the subject of the analysis.

The field further aims to examine both the affective and mnemonic elements that constitute national belonging and those that result in exclusion. Only by treating national feeling, memory, and shared values as legitimate objects of academic inquiry can such emotions be partially objectified, thereby enabling critical reflection and fostering dialogue both among members of the national collective and between citizens and those excluded from national identity. While the assumption that the people are the sovereign is widely accepted in contemporary constitutional democracies, there has been insufficient reflection on the historical contingency of national memory and feeling—products of the relatively brief modern era. The significance of movements that emphasize civic identity over national subjecthood, as well as the historical limitations of national frameworks, remains largely underexplored. It is precisely such historical blind spots that continue to reproduce conflicts over memory and identity.

Note: This text was originally published in Toki no Hōrei. Minor editorial discrepancies may exist between this version and the published article.