This project will study transnational experiences and memories of "democratization" in the U.S. colonial and postcolonial involvement in the Philippines and the U.S.-led Allied occupation of Japan (1945-52) in comparative as well as correlative perspectives. Both the U.S. experiences have considerably been discussed upon their "failures" and "successes" in transforming the two societies. By explicitly focusing on narratives relative to the notions of "democratization," however, the applicant expects to go beyond "success"/"failure" binary and investigate what notions of democracy, citizenship, and reform have made each people (Americans, Filipinos, and Japanese) of each time (then and now) believe what had been achieved or what had been left unachieved. Though the project will basically apply methods of history, the applicant believes his findings will contribute to provide a new insight to the debate over "democratization" as global issues, for which bases of mutual understandings are so badly needed.