Table Of ContentJapan’s Quiet Transformation
In the 1990s the phenomenal growth of the Japanese economy ground to a
shuddering halt and the country was subsequently crippled by enormous and
ongoing political, economic, and social problems. This accessible and
engaging textbook for all students of Japanese studies is beautifully illustrated
with striking images of turmoil and change in contemporary Japan. Kingston
examines the transformation of Japan, evaluating the social, economic, and
political challenges it has faced, as well as prospects for the future, addressing
what is often missed by the media’s relentlessly pessimistic coverage.
Controversially, it argues that the Japan that emerges from these manifold
problems may, in fact, be stronger than before. Areas covered include:
• the growth of nonprofit organizations;
• the erosion of bureaucratic power;
• information disclosure;
• judicial reform;
• the political economy of the construction industry;
• HIV, leprosy, and the struggle for human rights;
• food safety – BSE and whaling;
• nationalism and identity; and
• social transformation: family, gender, aging, and work.
Jeff Kingston is Professor of History and Director of Asian Studies at Temple
University Japan, and is a regular contributor to Japan Times.
Asia’s Transformations
Edited by Mark Selden
Binghamton University and Cornell University, USA
The books in this series explore the political, social, economic and cultural
consequences of Asia’s transformations in the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries. The series emphasizes the tumultuous interplay of local, national,
regional, and global forces as Asia bids to become the hub of the world
economy. While focusing on the contemporary, it also looks back to analyze
the antecedents of Asia’s contested rise. This series comprises several strands:
Asia’s Transformations aims to address the needs of students and teachers, and
the titles will be published in hardback and paperback. Titles include:
Japan’s Quiet Transformation The Making of Modern Korea
Social change and civil society in Adrian Buzo
the twenty-first century
Jeff Kingston Korean Society
Civil society, democracy and
State and Society in Twenty-first- the state
century China Edited by Charles K. Armstrong
Edited by Peter Hays Gries and
Stanley Rosen Remaking the Chinese State
Strategies, society and security
The Battle for Asia Edited by Chien-min Chao and
From decolonization to globalization Bruce J. Dickson
Mark T. Berger
Mao’s Children in the New China
Ethnicity in Asia Voices from the Red Guard
Edited by Colin Mackerras generation
Yarong Jiang and David Ashley
Chinese Society, second edition
Change, conflict and resistance Chinese Society
Edited by Elizabeth J. Perry and Change, conflict and resistance
Mark Selden Edited by Elizabeth J. Perry and
Mark Selden
The Resurgence of East Asia
500, 150 and 50 year perspectives Opium, Empire and the Global
Edited by Giovanni Arrighi, Takeshi Political Economy
Hamashita and Mark Selden Carl A. Trocki
Japan’s Comfort Women Debating Human Rights
Sexual slavery and prostitution Critical essays from the United
during World War II and the US States and Asia
occupation Edited by Peter Van Ness
Yuki Tanaka
Hong Kong’s History
State and society under colonial rule
Edited by Tak-Wing Ngo
Asia’s Great Cities
Each volume aims to capture the heartbeat of the contemporary city from
multiple perspectives emblematic of the authors’ own deep familiarity with
the distinctive faces of the city, its history, society, culture, politics and
economics, and its evolving position in national, regional and global frame-
works. While most volumes emphasize urban developments since the Second
World War, some pay close attention to the legacy of the longue durée in shap-
ing the contemporary. Thematic and comparative volumes address such
themes as urbanization, economic and financial linkages, architecture and
space, wealth and power, gendered relationships, planning and anarchy, and
ethnographies in national and regional perspective. Titles include:
Hong Kong Beijing in the Modern World
Global city David Strand and Madeline Yue Dong
Stephen Chiu and Tai-Lok Lui
Bangkok
Shanghai Place, practice and representation
Global city Marc Askew
Jeff Wasserstrom
Singapore
Carl Trocki
Asia.com is a series which focuses on the ways in which new information and
communication technologies are influencing politics, society and culture in
Asia. Titles include:
Asia.com Japanese Cybercultures
Asia encounters the Internet Edited by Mark McLelland and Nanette
Edited by K.C. Ho, Randolph Kluver Gottlieb
and Kenneth C.C. Yang
Literature and Society is a series that seeks to demonstrate the ways in which
Asian literature is influenced by the politics, society and culture in which it is
produced. Titles include:
Chinese Women Writers and the The Body in Postwar Japanese
Feminist Imagination Fiction
(1905–1945) Edited by Douglas N. Slaymaker
Haiping Yan
RoutledgeCurzon Studies in Asia’s Transformations is a forum for innovative new
research intended for a high-level specialist readership, and the titles will be
available in hardback only. Titles include:
1. Japanese Industrial 5. Internationalizing the Pacific
Governance The United States, Japan and the
Protectionism and the licensing state Institute of Pacific Relations in war
Yul Sohn and peace, 1919–1945
Tomoko Akami
2. Remaking Citizenship in
Hong Kong 6. Koreans in Japan
Community, nation and the Critical voices from the margin
global city Edited by Sonia Ryang
Edited by Agnes S. Ku and Ngai Pun
7. The American Occupation of
3. Chinese Media, Global Japan and Okinawa*
Contexts Literature and memory
Edited by Chin-Chuan Lee Michael Molasky
* Now available in paperback
4. Imperialism in South East Asia
‘A fleeting, passing phase’
Nicholas Tarling
Critical Asian Scholarship is a series intended to showcase the most important indi-
vidual contributions to scholarship in Asian Studies. Each of the volumes pres-
ents a leading Asian scholar addressing themes that are central to his or her most
significant and lasting contribution to Asian studies. The series is committed to
the rich variety of research and writing on Asia, and is not restricted to any
particular discipline, theoretical approach, or geographical expertise.
China’s Past, China’s Future Women and the Family in
Energy, food, environment Chinese History
Vaclav Smil Patricia Buckley Ebrey
China Unbound Southeast Asia
Evolving perspectives on the A testament
Chinese past George McT. Kahin
Paul A. Cohen
Japan’s Quiet
Transformation
Social change and civil society in the
twenty-first century
Jeff Kingston
First published 2004
by RoutledgeCurzon
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by RoutledgeCurzon
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
© 2004 Jeff Kingston
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Kingston, Jeff, 1957–
Japan’s quiet transformation: social change and civil society in the
21st century / by Jeff Kingston.
p. cm. – (Routledge studies in Asia’s transformation)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Social change–Japan. 2. Civil society–Japan. 3. Japan–social
conditions–1945– I. Title. II. Series.
HN723.5 .K537 2004
303.4'0952–dc22
2003024595
ISBN 0-203-64254-6 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-67615-7 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-27482-6 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-27483-4 (pbk)
Contents
List of figures ix
Acknowledgements xii
Preface xiv
1 The Lost Decade of the 1990s 1
2 Information disclosure 42
3 Building civil society: NPOs and judicial reform 70
4 Rogues and riches: the bureaucrats’ fall from grace 95
5 Downsizing the construction state 122
6 Bad blood: the betrayal and infection of Japan’s hemophiliacs 157
7 Dignity denied 180
8 Mad cows and ocean cockroaches 198
9 One hand clapping: currents of nationalism in contemporary
Japan 225
10 Social transformations: family, gender, aging, and work 257
Conclusion Under construction: Japan’s nascent civil society 306
Glossary 313
Notes 323
Bibliography 339
Index 347
Figures
1.1 Bikers clash with police in Hiroshima 4
1.2 Long hours of commuting, work, and after-work drinking with
colleagues and clients take their toll on Japan’s beleaguered
salarymen 7
1.3 Urban sprawl and modern infrastructure encroaching on
disappearing ways of rural Japan 8
1.4 Trendy boutiques like this are sprouting up in Japan’s cities 11
1.5 Monju, a fast-breeder reactor where a serious nuclear accident
occurred in 1995 18
1.6 A crowded train in the Tokyo rush hour, where average
commutes are 90 minutes 26
1.7 Young people staying connected with their keitai (mobile phones) 27
1.8 Japan’s massive sex industry caters to all tastes 28
1.9 Some of Japan’s unemployed demonstrate against job cuts 29
2.1 Governor Asano of Miyagi Prefecture played a key role in
promoting information disclosure 50
2.2 Mayor Yamada of Suginami Ward, Tokyo, led a campaign
of civil disobedience against Juki Net 62
4.1 Political campaigns in 2003 that promise to ‘restructure’ (fire)
bureaucrats 97
4.2 Matsuo Katsutoshi, convicted of embezzling massive sums from
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 109
4.3 Tanaka Makiko, the popular Foreign Minister sacked in 2002 by
Prime Minister Koizumi 113
4.4 Suzuki Muneo, a politician with close ties to the Foreign Ministry,
is notorious for battles with Tanaka Makiko and his arrest for
bribery 115
5.1 Cherry blossoms above a concreted river bank 123
5.2 Some 60% of Japan’s coastline is concreted, often with massive
tetrapods like these 126
5.3 Pine-shrouded islet surrounded by tetrapods 131
