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Constructing Civil Society in Japan
Author: Koichi Hasegawa
Publisher: ISBS
Published: 2004
Total Pages: 334
ISBN-13: 9781876843731
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Based on four major case studies, this book offers an overview of contemporary Japan's changing attitudes and policies regarding environmental issues. Beginning in the 1970s, the author traces how the rapid growth of environmental politics and actions contributed to the development of a vibrant civil society.
Civil Society in Japan
Author: K. Hirata
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2002-08-16
Total Pages: 222
ISBN-13: 0230109160
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Civil Society and Japan's Foreign Aid examines the changing relations between the Japanese state and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in promoting effective aid policies and analyzes the changing nature of policy making and governance in Japan. It is based on extensive research in Southeast Asia and Japan, investigating the role of Japanese aid in fields such as education, health care, environmental protection, and economic development. It analyzes the key players in aid policymaking, including donor governments, multinational organizations, international and local NGOs, the business community, and aid recipients.
Japan's Quiet Transformation
Author: Jeff Kingston
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2004-08-02
Total Pages: 375
ISBN-13: 1134478275
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The 1990s have been termed as 'Japan's lost decade' to describe how the phenomenal growth in the Japanese economy ground to a halt and the country was crippled by enormous and ongoing political, economic and social problems. In responding to these unprecedented difficulties, wide-ranging reforms have been adopted including NPO, information disclosure and judicial reform legislation. Controversially, this book argues that such reforms are creating a more robust civil society and demonstrate that Japan is far more dynamic than is generally recognized.
Site Fights
Author: Daniel P. Aldrich
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2016-02-04
Total Pages: 273
ISBN-13: 0801458250
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →One of the most vexing problems for governments is building controversial facilities that serve the needs of all citizens but have adverse consequences for host communities. Policymakers must decide not only where to locate often unwanted projects but also what methods to use when interacting with opposition groups. In Site Fights, Daniel P. Aldrich gathers quantitative evidence from close to five hundred municipalities across Japan to show that planners deliberately seek out acquiescent and unorganized communities for such facilities in order to minimize conflict. When protests arise over nuclear power plants, dams, and airports, agencies regularly rely on the coercive powers of the modern state, such as land expropriation and police repression. Only under pressure from civil society do policymakers move toward financial incentives and public relations campaigns. Through fieldwork and interviews with bureaucrats and activists, Aldrich illustrates these dynamics with case studies from Japan, France, and the United States. The incidents highlighted in Site Fights stress the importance of developing engaged civil society even in the absence of crisis, thereby making communities both less attractive to planners of controversial projects and more effective at resisting future threats.
Civil Society and International Students in Japan
Author: Polina Ivanova
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2023-07-14
Total Pages: 173
ISBN-13: 1000911659
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book explores encounters and interactions between international students and local civil society organizations (CSOs) in Japan. Based on the results of a cross-case analysis, this study reveals the possibilities for international students in Japan of creating social capital in the short term in culturally and socially diverse groups. While a conventional approach sees universities as the main support providers, this research shows the role of local CSOs as alternative actors offering international student support. Unlike the long-standing paradigm viewing Japanese civil society as top-down and closely following the government, this book uncovers many decentralized and bottom-up organizational types. Furthermore, it highlights an active part taken by foreign staff and volunteers in Japanese CSOs, which challenges the guest–host dichotomy of the previous literature. Presenting a reconsidered insight into the role of international students and their interaction with CSOs in community building, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Asian studies and migration studies as well as organizers of CSOs and faculty of international higher education institutions.
Making Japanese Citizens
Author: Simon Andrew Avenell
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Published: 2010
Total Pages: 370
ISBN-13: 0520262700
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Making Japanese Citizens is an expansive history of the activists, intellectuals, and movements that played a crucial role in shaping civil society and civic thought in postwar Japan. Weaving his analysis around the concept of shimin (citizen), Simon Andrew Avenell traces the development of a new vision of citizenship based on political participation, self-reliance, popular nationalism, and commitment to daily life. This rich portrayal of activists and their ideas illuminates questions of democracy, citizenship, and political participation not only in contemporary Japan but also, more generally, in other industrialized nations. --
Neighborhood Associations and Local Governance in Japan
Author: Robert J. Pekkanen
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-06-20
Total Pages: 280
ISBN-13: 1317754433
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Although local neighborhood associations are found in many countries, Japan’s are distinguished by their ubiquity, scope of activities, and very high participation rates, making them important for the study of society and politics. Most Japanese belong to one local neighborhood association or another, making them Japan’s most numerous civil society organization, and one that powerfully shapes governance outcomes in the country. And, they also often blur the state-society boundary, making them theoretically intriguing. Neighborhood Associations and Local Governance in Japan draws on a unique and novel body of empirical data derived from the first national survey of neighborhood associations carried out in 2007 and provides a multifaceted empirical portrait of Japan’s neighborhood associations. It examines how local associational structures affect the quality of local governance, and thus the quality of life for Japan’s citizens and residents, and illuminates the way in which these ambiguous associations can help us refine civil society theory and show how they contribute to governance. As well as outlining the key features of neighbourhood associations, the book goes on to examine in detail the way in which neighbourhood associations contribute to governance, in terms of social capital, networks with other community organizations, social service provision, cooperation with local governments and political participation. This book will be welcomed by students and scholars of Japanese politics, Japanese society, anthropology, urban studies as well as those interested in social capital and civil society.
Living Cities in Japan
Author: André Sorensen
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2007-08-07
Total Pages: 305
ISBN-13: 1134143184
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Over the last fifteen years local citizens' movements have spread rapidly throughout Japan. Created with the aim of improving the quality of the local environment, and of environmental management processes, such activities are widely referred to as machizukuri, and represent an important development in local politics and urban management in Japan. This volume examines the growth and nature of such civil society participation in local urban and environmental governance, raising important questions about the changing roles of and relations between central and local government, and between citizens and the state, in managing shared spaces. The machizukuri processes studied here can be seen as the focus of an important emerging trend toward increased civic participation in managing processes of urban change in Japan. The contributors provide a comprehensive overview of the machizukuri phenomenon through examination not only of theory and history, but also of case studies illustrating real changes in the institutions of place making and neighbourhood governance. Living Cities in Japan will be of particular value to readers interested in social, urban, geographical and environmental studies.
Social Capital and Civil Society in Japan
Author: 西出優子
Publisher:
Published: 2009-02
Total Pages: 200
ISBN-13: 9784861631054
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book is about social capital--social relationships such as trust, norms and networks that facilitate cooperation among members of a community. Based on a thorough review of the concept of social capital, it discusses trend of social capital in Japan from a civil society perspective, in particular, emerging nonprofit organizations as well as some aspect of traditional neighborhood associations. Nonprofit organizations, which voluntarily have been trying to solve social problems and to create new social values, have an important role in creating social capital. Nonprofits in Japan have successfully created, accumulated and utilized social capital in various fields. The role of nonprofits and various actors in community in creating and utilizing social capital in policy and practice are also discussed. It gives a reader an opportunity to reconsider the Japanese society from a social capital perspective, and to think how to revitalize trust and connections amon! g people and community for their well-being and invigorating civil society.
