- Convenor:
-
Tobias Weiss
(Sophia University)
Send message to Convenor
- Chairs:
-
Tobias Weiss
(Sophia University)
David Chiavacci (University of Zurich)
- Discussant:
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Naoto Higuchi
(Waseda University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Anthropology and Sociology
Short Abstract
The panel aims to look into the reasons for the relatively low level of social movement participation since the late 1970s until today. It will look at counter movements and social control, local variation in social movement activity and historical trajectories of movement organizations.
Long Abstract
Comparative social survey results show that there are relatively low levels of social movement activity in Japan (Yamamoto). Although there are regional and historical variations, social movement event analysis shows that the “ice age” period of social movement activity began in the late 1970s (Nishikido) and arguably continues until today. Labor movement activity decreased together with newer forms of social movement activity like environmental protests from the mid-1970s. While there are regional exceptions like higher social movement activity in Okinawa, and surges of social movement activity around the issues of nuclear power in 2012 and security policy in 2013 to 2015, social movement activity and political participation remains relatively limited. Standard explanations refer to the negative legacy of the 1960s student movement (Sakamoto et al.) or to the political culture (Yamamoto). Others have pointed to the legal rules for non-government activity as explanation for relatively low social movement activity. Some analyses have also attempted to connect the non-existence of counter cultural milieus to low social movement activity (Higuchi et al.).
The panel aims to address some lacunae of existing explanations by scrutinizing the effects of counter movements and social control (looking beyond formal legislation), regional validity and limitations of the “ice age” thesis and the historical trajectories of social movement organizations from the pre-“ice age” period to today, aiming to identify factors contributing to weakening social movement activity.
Higuchi, Naoto, Midori Ito, Shunsuke Tanabe, and Mitsutani. 2008. “Activism ha naze sezoku sarenai no ka. Nihon ni okeru atarashi shakai undo no ninaite wo megutte.” Ajia Teiheiyo Review (5): 53–67.
Nishikido, Makoto (2012). The Dynamics of protest activities in Japan: analysis using protest event data. Ningenkankyōronshū 12 (2): 103-147.
Sakamoto, Haruya, Kyoko Tominaga, and Yusuke Kanazawa. 2024. “How do negative evaluations of past social movements affect political participation? Explaining Japan’s low level of political participation.” The Nonprofit Review 23(1+2): 47–57.
Yamamoto Hidehiro. 2019. “Shakai undō wo juyō suru seijibunka, shakaiundō no taido ni taisuru taido no kokusaihikaku”. In Gendai Nihon no shiminshakai: sādo sector chōsa ni yoru jisshōbunseki, eds. Ushiro Fusao and Sakamoto Haruya. Tokyo: Hōritsu Bunkasha, 226-238.
| Abstract in Japanese (if needed) |
Accepted papers
Paper short abstract
Japanese social movements were revived within the global movement against neoliberalism in the 2000s. The infrastructure was provided by activists from the 1970s-80s New Left Movements. This study examines why Japanese social movements revived on the theme of anti-poverty within a global context.
Paper long abstract
Although Japan is often described as having a low level of social activism, the anti-poverty movement gained momentum in 2008. The structural reasons lie in the economic stagnation known as Japan's “lost three decades”, while the neoliberal policies pursued since the Koizumi administration in 2001 created the political conditions conducive to the emergence of this movement. These factors alone do not fully explain the movement's revival. This study examines the anti-poverty movement within its historical context with past movements to clarify the reasons for its revival in the 2000s. Specifically, activists from Japan's new left movements since the 1970s-80s, who had been involved in labor movements for day laborers, began developing movements for the homeless people from the mid-1990s. By the early 2000s, these developed into movements against neoliberalism.
Even during the period said to have seen social movements stagnate, new left activists did not cease their activities. The expansion of less contentious movements, such as agricultural activism, also contributed to the movements becoming invisible. Some movements ceased to be contentious precisely because they became institutionalized. Yet these movements provided the infrastructure for the anti-poverty movements of the 2000s.
By clarifying the connection between the global anti-neoliberal movement and Japan's anti-poverty movement, we can understand why social movements stagnate at certain periods and become reactivated at others.
Paper long abstract
This paper examines the evolution of protest events within Okinawa’s peace movement in comparative perspective with mainland Japan. Okinawa occupies a distinctive position in postwar Japan due to its prolonged experience of U.S. military rule. From the end of World War II until 1972, the islands were placed under U.S. administration and governed in an indirect, military-colonial manner, with limited political autonomy for local residents. Even after the reversion of administrative rights to Japan, the disproportionate concentration of U.S. military bases in Okinawa remained largely unchanged, sustaining a continuous peace movement centered on opposition to militarization and base-related grievances.
Since 1972, however, the institutional conditions shaping protest have been significantly constrained. The Japan–U.S. Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and the Special Criminal Act Attendant upon the Enforcement of the Agreement under Article VI of SOFA have restricted direct actions at live-fire training ranges and other militarized sites, making certain forms of on-site resistance increasingly difficult. Despite these constraints, Okinawa has repeatedly witnessed moments of large-scale mobilization. Most notably, mass protests involving tens of thousands of participants emerged in 1995 in response to sexual violence committed by U.S. military personnel against local residents, marking a critical turning point in the post-reversion peace movement.
More recently, sites of new U.S. military base construction, such as Henoko and Takae, have become focal points of sustained contention. Sit-ins and other forms of direct action at these sites have followed trajectories distinct from those observed on the Japanese mainland, where peace-related protests have more often taken the form of episodic mass mobilization rather than prolonged on-site resistance.
Drawing on protest event data from 2010 to 2024, this study analyzes both resonance and divergence in the repertoires of peace movements in Okinawa and mainland Japan. By situating Okinawan protest within broader debates on Japanese social movements, including discussions of a post-2011 partial thaw of Japan’s so-called “movement ice age,” this paper highlights how historical legacies and security regimes shape the forms and temporal dynamics of protest in contemporary democracies.
Paper short abstract
The paper analyzes how the Japan Productivity Center used various types of resources to deplete the basis of mobilization for the radical labor movement from the early 1960s through the 1970s reflecting on the impact this had on social movement activity more generally.
Paper long abstract
The paper discusses how the radical part of the Japanese labor union movement was coopted and how striking disappeared from its repertoire of contention. The Japanese labor movement was dominated by a relatively radical labor federation, Sōhyō, from the early 1950s to the mid-1970s. Correlating with the decrease of social movement activity from the mid-1970s, however, labor unions increasingly refrained from strike activity. This change went together with a shift of the center of gravity of the labor movement from the more radical Sōhyō unions to labor unions embracing cooperative labor relations. In the paper, I analyze the activity of the Japan Productivity Center, a foundation aiming to “modernize labor relations”. In the language of the JPC, this meant excluding radical labor movement leaders and coopting and controlling the union rank and file.
I analyze how the JPC manipulated various types of resources and drew on different social fields to weaken the radical part of the labor movement and deplete its resource base of mobilization. Economists, mostly informed by developmentalist ideas (Bai Gao) provided academic legitimization and arguments to the JPC. In academia, they stood in opposition to Marxist scholars supporting the radical labor movement. Based on developmentalist arguments about the progress of the Japanese economy during the high-growth era and the ideal form of labor relations, the JPC developed a program of ideological schooling based on nationalism and company identity for labor unions aimed at stripping the radical labor movement of its legitimacy. Paralleling this ideological effort, the JPC built extensive networks among conservative union leaders, foremen and other workplace leaders and managers. These were utilized to combine ideological schooling with targeted wage discrimination against radical union leaders and members ousting them from key companies and industry federations in the private sector from the mid-1960s through the 1970s.
While most scholars, tend to see the labor movement as distinct and unrelated to new social movements like the environmental movement, the paper argues that the labor movement set the precedent for similar processes of coopting and excluding radical elements in other fields.