title: Vertrauen als Grundlage für Partizipation?: Genderdifferenzen in japanischen Nachbarschaftsorganisationen
Creators: name: Holdgrün, Phoebe
name: Tiefenbach, Tim
Publisher: name: Fachinformationsdienst (FID) Asien
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Japan
subject: Nachbarschaft
subject: Chōnaikai
subject: Vertrauen
subject: Geschlechterverhältnis
subject: 307

description: Trust as a Driver of Participation? Gender Differences in Japanese Neighborhood Associations Over 300.000 neighborhood associations (NHA) throughout Japan engage in social and political activities, such as organizing events or lobbying with local politicians. However, the scope and intensity of activities differ among NHAs, and not all members within an NHA are involved in all kinds of activities. This paper analyzes empirically the determinants of political and non-political NHA participation in Japan, while putting a special emphasis on trust as a main driver of engagement. Taking into account the apparent gender inequalities in Japanese society, as well as the gender differences exhibited in trust in general, this paper aims at disentangling the correlation of NHA participation with trust stratified by gender. Conceptually we distinguish between participation in NHA activities in general, and participation in political activities of NHA. Further, we use two different concepts of trust: horizontal trust in others on the one hand and vertical trust in authorities on the other hand. Using these concepts we derive two main hypotheses from the literature: First, we expect that horizontal trust correlates positively with active NHA participation in general (Putnam 2000). Second, we assume that vertical trust correlates positively with the level of political activities within an NHA (Tsujinaka, Pekkanen and Yamamoto 2009). Next to trust, we also control for other factors as possible predictors of participation, and show how socio-demographic factors correlate with participation in various ways. We apply a mixed methods approach by relying on quantitative and qualitative data. For our statistical analysis we use data from an online survey conducted in 2013 (n=1660). Complementary to this we analyze qualitative data from explorative semi-structured interviews with NHA members (2014). Our findings show a complex correlation of participation and trust, including gender-related differences. Our main findings are: (1) Horizontal trust does not have an impact on political or non-political participation in NHA activities, regardless of gender. (2) Vertical trust is an important predictor for political as well as non-political activities in NHAs, but only in the case of women. (3) Feelings of joy and trust correlate with political as well as non-political participation in the case of women, whereas for men, status-related socio-demographic factors and the extent of communication with politicians are stronger drivers. Our findings thus question the claim made by social capital theory that horizontal trust fosters civil engagement. In addition, it illustrates that vertical trust as well as gender need to be considered more carefully in future studies.
description: Japan 2014: Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, p. 48