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Lecture Outline:
Key Concepts: The history of protest through the "humble petition"; death, sincerity and moral authority; focus on mitigation and compensation rather than fundamental challenge to cause of harm; protest as specific, localised complaint; political structures in postwar Japan as dampeners of protest; chônaikai , kôenkai and the postwar "conservative hegemony"; Broadbent's study of Oita landfill as illustration; tactics of "status seduction" and "manipulation of institutions"; compensation and dependency; alternative means of protest ; Mishima-Shimizu-Numazu citizens movement; use of innovative monitoring techniques; importance of schoolteachers and a local radical tradition; problems of replication; anti-Narita alliance of farmers and students; history of farmers' complaints; geopolitical context of student radicalism; the 1968 riots; Narita students and the organic agriculture movement; public apathy in absence of immediate threat; recession elevates concerns on growth over those on environment; disappearance of obvious point-source targets for protest; absence of an appropriate legal framework for environmental NGOs; the NPO law; parochialism, political patronage and compensation as impediments to national organisation; Seikatsu Club as a multi-prefectural social and environmental organisation in Japan; a green movement based on the concerns of housewives; consumer's co-operatives and the organic food movement; NET politics. Revision Questions: 1. "Environmental movements in postwar Japan have been characterised by an excessively parochial view". Discuss. 2. Why did the large scale environmental protests of the late 1960s not lead to the development of effective national environmental pressure groups? 3. "The postwar Japan political order has proved successful in managing environmental protest". Discuss, with reference to at least one case study. Recommended Reading: Apter, David E. and Sawa, Nagayo (1984) Against the State: Politics and Social Protest in Japan. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 271 p. Brecher, W. Puck (2000) An Investigation of Japan's Relationship to Nature and Environment. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, Chapter 4. Broadbent, Jeffrey (1998) Environmental Politics in Japan: Networks of Power and Protest. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Chapters 4-10. Huddle, Norie and Reich, Michael (1987) Island of Dreams: Environmental Crisis in Japan. Vermont: Schenkman Books, Second Edition, Chapter 9. Kidder, Robert L. (1997) "Disasters Chronic and Acute: Issues in the Study of Environmental Pollution in Urban Japan". In: PP Karan and Kristin Stapleton (eds.), The Japanese City. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, pp. 156-175. Lam, Peng-Er (1999) Green Politics in Japan. London: Routledge, Chapters 5-9. Simko, Dusan (1993) "Pollution and neighbourhood organizations in Ojima, Kôtô-ku, Tokyo: a progress report" in J. Sargent and R. Wiltshire (eds.) Geographical Studies and Japan, Folkestone: Japan Library, pp.63-69. |