CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE STATE
PUBLICATIONS ON CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE STATE
Book Review of Gender and Human Rights in Japan, Constructing Civil Society in Japan, and Japan’s Quiet Transformation Journal of Politics (May 2006)
For many years, the prevailing image of Japanese politics was a pro-business bureaucratic monolith where nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and citizens’ groups played little, if any, role. “Iron triangles” between the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party, the long-ruling hegemonic party in Japan), producer groups, and the relevant central ministries appeared to explain the remarkable stability of Japan’s dominant policy structures. As a result, the perennial question among students of Japanese politics, “Is Japan changing?” continues to be a fruitful line of inquiry. Three new books, examining various dimensions of Japan’s civil society, promise to provide novel and insightful perspectives on Japan’s changing political landscape.
Book Review of Organizing the Spontaneous Journal of East Asian Studies (Winter 2005)
This book review discusses the book Organizing the Spontaneous by Wesley Sasaki-Uemura, an investigation of four social movement organizations active during the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (Anpo) demonstrations.
Democracies Evolving (in Japanese) PI-Forum Volume 1 Number 1 (December 2004)
This Japanese-language article summarizes the overall themes of my dissertation, a cross-national, over time investigation of how democratic states interact with contentious civil society. In some cases, state agencies have updated and deepended their tool kits for handling citizen opposition.
Review of Japanese Governance: Beyond Japan Inc. Social Science Japan Journal Volume 7 Number 2 (October 2004)
This review investigates the book Japanese Governance: Beyond Japan Inc. edited by Jennifer Amyx and Peter Drysdale and published by Routledge Curzon in 2003.
Localities That Can Say No? Autonomy and Dependence in Japanese Local Government Asian Journal of Political Science Volume 7 Number 1 (June 1999)
This article warns against the over-exaggeration of the powers of localities vis-a-vis the Japanese central government. Fiscally powerful local governments in Japan have the ability to resist the state, but they lack the power to force the central government to take action. The localities’ ability to resist the central government varies directly with the state of Japan’s economy. As the economy improves and rising local tax revenues increase the fiscal autonomy of local governments, their autonomy in policy spheres also increases. I use three case studies of post-earthquake Kobe, US military bases in Okinawa, and the village of Kitoh on the island of Shikoku to illustrate this phenomenon.
For many years, the prevailing image of Japanese politics was a pro-business bureaucratic monolith where nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and citizens’ groups played little, if any, role. “Iron triangles” between the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party, the long-ruling hegemonic party in Japan), producer groups, and the relevant central ministries appeared to explain the remarkable stability of Japan’s dominant policy structures. As a result, the perennial question among students of Japanese politics, “Is Japan changing?” continues to be a fruitful line of inquiry. Three new books, examining various dimensions of Japan’s civil society, promise to provide novel and insightful perspectives on Japan’s changing political landscape.
Book Review of Organizing the Spontaneous Journal of East Asian Studies (Winter 2005)
This book review discusses the book Organizing the Spontaneous by Wesley Sasaki-Uemura, an investigation of four social movement organizations active during the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (Anpo) demonstrations.
Democracies Evolving (in Japanese) PI-Forum Volume 1 Number 1 (December 2004)
This Japanese-language article summarizes the overall themes of my dissertation, a cross-national, over time investigation of how democratic states interact with contentious civil society. In some cases, state agencies have updated and deepended their tool kits for handling citizen opposition.
Review of Japanese Governance: Beyond Japan Inc. Social Science Japan Journal Volume 7 Number 2 (October 2004)
This review investigates the book Japanese Governance: Beyond Japan Inc. edited by Jennifer Amyx and Peter Drysdale and published by Routledge Curzon in 2003.
Localities That Can Say No? Autonomy and Dependence in Japanese Local Government Asian Journal of Political Science Volume 7 Number 1 (June 1999)
This article warns against the over-exaggeration of the powers of localities vis-a-vis the Japanese central government. Fiscally powerful local governments in Japan have the ability to resist the state, but they lack the power to force the central government to take action. The localities’ ability to resist the central government varies directly with the state of Japan’s economy. As the economy improves and rising local tax revenues increase the fiscal autonomy of local governments, their autonomy in policy spheres also increases. I use three case studies of post-earthquake Kobe, US military bases in Okinawa, and the village of Kitoh on the island of Shikoku to illustrate this phenomenon.