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A steady rise in what is called 'non-regular employment' is the most notable change in Japanese working life since at least the 1980s. Such workers accounted for nearly 40% of all employees by 2015. This paper focuses on the results of the turn to non-regular employment and identifies its distinctive aspects in the context of a long history of various forms of precarious employment. A historical perspective shows that newer forms of second-tier status, including some that can be termed 'non-regular regular' employment, have come to overlay continuing older ones. Important new elements include not only a far greater absolute and relative number of non-regular workers but also their far greater presence in the service sector. In addition, today's nonregular workers differ in social characteristics such as age, education, and gender. The relative decline of social movements is a notable impediment in seeking reform, while the move away from seeing gender as a natural axis of differentiation offers some potential for addressing the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes a theoretical framework to understand how nations deal with collective memories of perpetration of severe human rights violations, which do not fit comfortably in any national master narrative but have become increasingly difficult to ignore. Building on studies of collective memory, the framework explicates how initial historical conditions of the nation, domestic social movements, and the degree of international pressures move the national discourse along two key dimensions - (1. acceptance of guilt and (2. international orientation of the discourse - which map out seven possible responses to collective trauma of perpetration. Through examination of the history of post-war Japan and content analyses of newspaper editorials and prime ministers' speeches from 1945 through 2004, the empirical analysis applies the framework to the Japanese case. The analysis reveals that arguments for apologies to Asian victims have gained ground due to the intensification of domestic social movements, international pressures from neighboring countries, and global human rights influence. It also shows that arguments that evade the ugly past have persisted because of the initial conditions immediately after 1945, overwhelming emphasis on Japanese victims in the ensuing decades, and recent appropriation of human rights language by proponents of the defensive arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an in-depth exploration into the social conditions and politics of Japan in 1968, noting the shifts in public perception and reaction to violence performed by the government. Several activist and dissident movements among students and citizens are described as case examples of a larger international social phenomena of the 1960s regarding political participation and cultural identification. Analysis is also given to the depiction and portrayal of political demonstrations and conflict between state actors and dissidents within the media of the nation.

The authors integrate social movement outcomes research and the world society approach to build a theoretical model to examine the impact of global and local factors on movement outcomes. Challenging the current research on policy change, which rarely examines the effects of global norms and local activism in one analysis, they argue (1) that global regimes empower and embolden local social movements and increase pressure on target governments from below, and (2) that local activists appeal to international forums with help from international activists to pressure the governments from above. When the pressures from the top and the bottom converge, social movements are more likely to succeed. Furthermore, these pressures are stronger in countries integrated into global society and on issues with strong global norms. The empirical analysis of social movements by resident Koreans in Japan advocating for four types of human rights-civil, political, social/economic, and cultural-demonstrates that the movements produced more successes as Japan's involvement in the international human rights regime expanded since the late 1970s, and that activism on issues with strong global norms achieved greater successes. The analysis also shows that lack of cohesive domestic activism can undercut the chances of social movements' success even with strong global norms on the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the Ansei Edo Earthquake of 1855, Japanese print makers produced hundreds of varieties of catfish picture prints ("namazu-e"). These prints afforded the common people of Edo (soon to become Tokyo) an ideal vehicle for commenting on politics and society under the cover of discussing the recent earthquake. Some were sharply critical of the existing situation, and some adumbrated alternative political and social visions. One of these visions was of "Japan" as a natural community. Some prints portrayed the earthquake that shook Edo as having shaken all of Japan, and others incorporated events of the recent past into new narratives of world-renewal and change. The solar deity Amaterasu, who played a prominent role in national ideology after 1868, first came to widespread attention in Edo via these prints. In this and other ways, the catfish picture prints helped lay the psychological groundwork for the process of "making Japanese" that would begin in earnest after 1868, Furthermore, owing to a coincidence in which 1855 and 1867 were both years of special religious significance, it is likely that the folk memory of the Ansei Edo Earthquake helped condition popular expectations of upheaval and change during the Tokugawa bakufu's final year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the ideas and power struggles that have shaped the ongoing battle to privatize the Japanese postal services. For years, a coalition of commissioned postmasters, postal workers, bureaucrats and politicians resisted postal reform in part by appealing to the ‘traditional values’ symbolized by the state-run system and playing to the fears of ordinary citizens. Against this backdrop, Koizumi struggled to win the public over to his vision of a privatized postal system and, more broadly, a political economy based on free market principles. Koizumi was ultimately successful in passing his postal privatization bills in October 2005 not because he had won the ideological battle for the hearts and minds of the general public but because he managed to marginalize his opponents by changing the political and electoral rules of the game. Now, Koizumi faces renewed pressures from his opponents to dilute the market-oriented dimensions of the new postal regime as the government prepares to implement the privatization legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Historically, modern women’s movements have developed in the context of the nation. In Japan, the radical ‘lib’ movement after 1970 criticized the image of national hegemonial femininity centered on the mother and housewife behind the ‘export production front’ and transcended national representations of femininity and gender. In the early 1990s, the women’s movements underwent four further changes: they turned from ‘women’s issues’ to the gender concept, developed an international orientation and networks, intensified knowledge politics in preparation for the coming information society, and engaged in advocating political and legal change. These changes are critical dimensions of the transformation and internationalization of this social movement. From mothers of the nation, Japanese women activists have moved on to become citizens both in the regional and in the global context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines the role of loosely-coupled state actor-social movement coalitions in creating positive policy outcomes. It specifies the organizational locations within the state most conducive to state actor-social movement ties. Using the case of Japanese anti-pollution politics between 1956 and 1976, we demonstrate that favorable policy outcomes were the result of multiple coalitions between anti-pollution movements and state agencies, opposition political parties, local governments, and the courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]