1st Edition

Handbook of Civil Society in Japan

Edited By Simon Avenell, Akihiro Ogawa Copyright 2025
354 Pages
by Routledge

354 Pages
by Routledge

Civil society in Japan is a large and multifaceted sphere with a diversity of actors pursuing various social, political, and economic objectives. The sphere has experienced major waves of transformation in the post-1945 era, especially in the 1990s when volunteering and nonprofit activities came to the forefront of political and popular attention. This handbook brings together twenty-one leading... Read more
Introduction, Chapter 1—Conceptualizations: The Idea of Civil Society in Japan (Simon Avenell), Part 1: Institutions, Part 2: Justice, Part 3: Transnationalism

Biography

Simon Avenell is Professor of modern Japanese history at the Australian National University. He focuses on social, political, and intellectual developments after 1945. His books include Making Japanese Citizens (University of California Press, 2010), Transnational Japan in the Global Environmental Movement(University of Hawai’i Press, 2017), and Asia and Postwar Japan(Harvard University Press, 2022). In 2025 he will publish A History of Postwar Japan: Recovery, Prosperity, and Transformation (University of Hawai’i Press). He is currently conducting research on generational politics in contemporary Japan. Akihiro Ogawa is Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His core research interest lies in contemporary Japan and Asia, focusing on civil society. His research is widely published with more than 80 publications, and his most recent solo-authored monograph is Antinuclear Citizens: Sustainable Policy and Grassroots Activism in Post-Fukushima Japan (Stanford University Press, 2023). He chairs the Asian Civil Society Research Network (https://asiancivilsociety.com/), founded in 2017, and is currently working on legislative transparency with parliamentary monitoring organizations across Asia.