Activism in Contemporary Japan: New Ideas, Players and Arenas?Julia Obinger

ASIEN – Nr. 139 (2016) pp. 134–36

University of Zurich, Zurich, November 5–7, 2015

Japan’s voluntary sector is multifaceted and dynamic, and the incorporation of NPOs saw quite a boom in the late 1990s after new legislation was passed. At the same time, small niches of subcultural activism developed, enriching Japan’s stagnant protest scene with new tactics. Despite all this, the absence of large-scale confrontational public demonstrations and citizen protest movements — or: lack of media coverage thereof— has led to the impression of a virtually “invisible” civil society in Japan.