Abstract



The second half of the nineteenth century, amid the intellectual and political crises of Qajar Iran, witnessed the emergence of a new image of Japan in the Iranian press and the writings of intellectuals: Japan was represented not merely as a distant geopolitical reality, but as a discursive signifier that made it possible to conceive of modernity without self-alienation. Drawing on the post-structuralist discourse analysis of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and an extensive corpus of Qajar-era newspapers and periodicals, this study examines the discursive mechanisms through which Japan was represented in these texts and the role this representation played in legitimizing reformist action.



The findings reveal three discursive mechanisms. First, the selective foregrounding of Japan’s achievements in constitutionalism, education, military-industrial modernization, and its victory over Russia; second, the marginalization of the repressive, expansionist, and crisis-generating dimensions of Japanese modernization, which facilitated the construction of Japan as a model; and third, the consolidation of this image through the repetition and articulation of positive signifiers, positioning Japan as the “victorious Other” in contrast to Iran’s prevailing condition.



These mechanisms produced an idealized image of Japan that, rather than constituting a comprehensive reflection of the country’s historical reality, was formulated in response to the discursive needs of Iran’s reformist and intellectual currents. By enabling comparisons between Iran and Japan and providing a framework for rethinking the existing order, this representation helped legitimize reformist action on the eve of the Constitutional Revolution and, in the subsequent period, contributed to the formulation of models for institutional modernization and administrative reform in Iran.