White, James. "State Growth and Popular Protest in Tokugawa Japan". The Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol.14, No.1 (1988): 1-25.

White, James. "State Growth and Popular Protest in Tokugawa Japan". The Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol.14, No.1 (1988): 1-25.

• The author argues that the majority of texts which evaluate the strength and success of the Tokugawa government in Japan are wrong in assessing its success on social and economic control, because these were never the explicit goals of the Tokugawa government. Instead, the political control of the regime should be measured, defined as the state's monopoly on legitimate force across Japan (1).
• Dr. White argues that from its inception as a fairly weak state in the 17th Century, the Tokugawa state grew in power and established a monopoly on the use of force and a centralized government which laid the foundation for the modern Japan of the Meiji period (2).
• The power of the central government grew during the Tokugawa period, but it remained dependent on the authority of the daimyo for administration. The hallmarks of rational-bureaucratic state administration, like national treasury separate judicial branches, and a police force, remained absent throughout the period (3).
• The author contests that the lack of centralized bureaucratic organs in the Tokugawa state did not prevent it from being powerful and absolutist, because the daimyo could not fight each other, the daimyo were subject to the military force of the Tokugawa, and the use of coercion by the daimyo on their subjects was limited by the Tokugawa state (4).
• In assessing the absolutism of the Tokugawa state, the author believes that it was an absolute monarchy on par with contemporary European states. This situation arose not out of an impressive centralization of the Tokugawa state, but a reflection that no 'absolutist' state ever actually centralized power to the degree claimed (6).
• Around the end of the 1500s, the divided states of Japan began processes of centralization later continued by the Tokugawa government. They disarmed the peasantry, destroyed a number of lordly fortifications, conducted land surveys, burdened the samurai class with administrative responsibilities, subjugated urban populations, and corralled religious authority (10).
• The Tokugawa state never moved beyond the centralization imagined during the period of early state formation in the 17th Century. Although largely seen as a failure by historians, it actually reflects the isolation of Japan from the military threats which prompted absolutist European states to continue the process of centralization. Without these exogenous pressures, the Tokugawa state had achieved its goals of peace and stability and did not require further centralization (10-11).
• The Tokugawa state did, however, decline as economic and military power declined relative to other actors. Inflation caused imperial revenues to diminish, while monopolists lost out to increasingly wealthy and powerful entrepreneurs. The Tokugawa lost of the support of the daimyo for reforms and were unable to impose their will on local groups (11-12).
• The establishment of the Tokugawa state in 1608 ended the threat posed to the Emperor by an armed military force in the countryside, as ownership of land revenue and military power were decisively severed. The samurai were salaried and had their land holdings removed, while the peasantry were tied to their land and disarmed. Only the diamyo had military power in the provinces (13).
• The absence of peasant uprisings during this period in Japanese history demonstrates the control that the Tokugawa exercised over peasant life, as military force could not be effectively mobilized to voice concerns (13).
• Like the absolutism of European states, the Tokugawa state attempted to remove religious organizations as alternative nodes of power. During the 1500s and 1600s, hundreds of Buddhist temples were destroyed and thousands of priests killed, almost on the genocidal scale of the massacre of tens of thousands of Japanese Catholics in 1637 (14).
• The centralization of the Tokugawa state was characterized by the subordination of religious groups to state, the establishment of a national system of market control and coinage, and the control of the regional nobility. In this last case, the daimyo had to reside in Edo every other year and required imperial permission to marry (15).
• The Tokugawa extended this state power through actual means to prevent it from being merely symbolic. The Tokugawa proved themselves capable to legislating and enforcing food transfers during famine, spying on daimyo, and even removing daimyo from power in cases of gross negligence (15-16).
• Daimyo also had to participate in a system of national taxation, although this was more decentralized than other areas during the time. The Emperor expected daimyo to maintain roads and canal systems on their own, with only a few national systems, like the coastal defenses or extraordinary measures (16).
• The rights of peasants to protest the system was restricted throughout the 1600s, from a position of relative freedom to ignore obligations should they feel wronged by their lord to a more restricted regime that absolutely prohibited protest. The channels of appeal became more restricted and punishments for violation more severe (19).
• In light of decreased state power and a diminished tax base due to inflation in the 18th Century, peasant revolts became more common and the Tokugawa enacted more restrictive measures. In 1769, firearms were used to disperse protesters and in 1770 a system of informants was created to identify troublemakers (19-20).
• Despite the nominal restrictions of Tokugawa power against the daimyo, in times of crisis, the Tokugawa were able to effectively wield authority throughout their domains. This included both the power to level taxes and, in the aftermath of revolt, to assume direct control over the administration and judiciary proceedings of large areas (21).