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Paper short abstract

How do individuals in apolitical organizations become politically active? We refine the Civic Voluntarism Model to understand political engagement in Sōka Gakkai. We show that it is not obedience, but interpersonal recruitment, driven by a “core group” of highly active members, that is key.

Paper long abstract

Citizen participation is the foundation of thriving democracies. However, many democracies face the challenges of affective polarization or widespread political disinterest and disengagement. Against this backdrop, it is important to understand how apolitical individuals are mobilized and become politicized. Researchers have produced a large body of literature on civil society organizations and its role in liberal democracies, addressing among others the politization of otherwise apolitical organizations. How, for example, do the rank-and-file members of religions, professional associations, sports-clubs etc. become mobilized not only to turn out to vote, but In Japan, however, much of the literature pays little attention to the importance of social context, as can be seen in publications not just on religious movements, but on other groups, too, such as business, farm, or labor networks. These organizations are often grouped together as the ‘organized vote’ (soshikihyō), with little consideration of how votes are actually mobilized, what motivates members to vote along the organizational recommendation. The assumption has often been that networks are simply tools that are used to pressure voters into mobilizing for paternalistic politicians to mobilize others to do so. This question is not only important to understand how political participation is influenced by membership in apolitical organizations, but also given the substantial decline in Kōmeitō’s voter support over the last twenty years. We reject the simplistic claims from some commentators that adherents are simply following orders and instead focus on processes of internal mobilization within the organization. We base our investigation on the civic voluntarism model (CVM) that posits that people participate in politics because they can, they want to, or someone asked them. We show how this model works in a religious setting by refining it to show that a group of people who are largely apolitical are mobilized by their fellow adherents, a ‘core group’ of highly religious and politically active members.

We base our analysis on in-depth interviews and ethnographic research conducted in the early to mid-2020s and on an original survey we conducted among Gakkai members in the late summer of 2024.