The State of Civil Society in Japan

This book is about associational life and the public sphere in Japan.

Frank J. Schwartz (Edited by), Susan J. Pharr (Edited by)

9780521534628, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 20 October 2003

416 pages, 14 b/w illus. 14 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.61 kg

'The contributors' insistence on analyzing the interplay between the state and civil society, rather than studying the spheres in isolation, is a valuable framework … the book is a major step toward understanding the complexity of Japan's civil society, especially the interplay of society and the state.' The Asahi Shimbun

For all the obstacles that remain, civil society is burgeoning in Japan, and the idea of civil society is at the core of the current debate about how to reinvigorate the country. This book gathers the insights of American and Japanese scholars from the fields of political science, sociology, social psychology, and history to investigate the nature of associational life and the public sphere in Japan. It goes beyond assessing the condition of civil society to explore the role of the state in shaping civil society over time, and its broad, comparative framework is useful for thinking about civil society not just in Japan, but elsewhere in the contemporary world. Given its wealth of original research and the uniform strength of its individual chapters, this book will appeal to a broad audience of social scientists, practitioners, and policy-makers.

Introduction
Part I. Context: 1. What is civil society? Frank Schwartz
2. From Meiji to Heisei: the state and civil society in Japan Sheldon Garon
3. Capitalism and civil society in postwar Japan: perspectives from intellectual history Andrew Barshay
Part II. The Associational Sphere: 4. Japan's civil society organizations in comparative perspective Tsujinaka Yutaka
5. Molding Japanese civil society: state structured incentives and the patterning of civil society Robert Pekkanen
6. After Aum: religion and civil society in Japan Helen Hardacre
7. State-society partnerships in the Japanese welfare state Margarita Estevez-Abe
Part III. The Nonmarket Activities of Economic Actors: 8. Redefining the conservative coalition: agriculture and small business in Japan Robert Bullock
9. The death of unions' associational life? Political and cultural aspects of enterprise unions Suzuki Akira
10. The struggle for an independent consumer society: consumer activism and the state's response in postwar Japan Patricia Maclachlan
Part IV. State-Civil Society Linkages: 11. Media and the Internet in the development of civil society in Japan Laurie Freeman
12. A tale of two legal systems: prosecuting corruption in Japan and Italy David Johnson
Part V. Globalization and Value Change: 13. Trust and social intelligence in Japan Yamagishi Toshio
14. Building global civil society from the outside in? Japan's development NGOs, the state, and international norms Kim Reimann
Conclusion: targeting by an activist state: Japan as a civil society model Susan Pharr.

Subject Areas: Political science & theory [JPA], Regional studies [GTB]