Originally posted by den4
seriously, I think industrialization and government types are not the leading thing to say which country is western or not, more like which nations were originally european and became the majority of that particular country, along with the language spoken...asia is predominantly asian, africans are predominantly black....Australians and New Zealanders tend to be run under British rule, so it is now a western nation with european values, and so is america (even if it became independent of British rule)...think these are what makes a country Western....
That's a bit simple. I want to ask you what you'd do with a country having roughly half its population from European origin and the other not. There aren't any such well defined country nowadays, but there could be. New Zealand, with only 3,5 million people (75% Europeans), could very well "go Asian" in a not so remote future with the current immigration levels.

Let's take another, real, example. Bolivia and Peru are almost always put i the Western country group because they are in America, ex-Spanish colonies, with Spanish as official language. However, less than 15% of the population (in both countries) are from European descent. More than 60% are Ameridians, in majority Quechua or Aymara, speaking Quechua or Aymara. Their culture is still very similar to what it was during the Inca empire, religion and modernity (cars, electricity...) notwithstanding. So, can this European minority justify that these country are Western, even when life there is probably much more different than in Europe, North America, Australia or... Japan ?

If the ethny defines Westerness, few South American countries are Western (except Chile, Argentina and Uruguay). Mexico is composed of 1/3 of Amerindians and the 2/3 left are mestizo (mixed European and Amerindian descent). Honduras is 90% mestizo, 7% Indian, say my sources. Haiti is 95% African descent, 5% mulatto and European descent. Brazil only has 55% of its people from European descent. That would be absurd to divide South America's Westerness just on basis each country's ethnic composition. Or I am wrong ?


and Japan is definitely not taken after the european mold, even if the government was set up by americans after the second world war...
Japan has copied the biggest part of its political, legal, economical and educational systems on the West since the Meiji era. You refer to the Constitution imposed by the US after WWII, but that's just a detail of what has been Westernised in Japan.