Japanese new left movements and their legacy for civil society
Creators: name: Ando, Takemasa
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2010
Subjects: subject: HN730.Z9 R336 2010
subject: New Left Japan
subject: Social movements Japan
subject: Japan Politics and government 1945-

description: This thesis explores the legacy for the civil society ofJapanese new left movements, which consisted mainly of anti-Vietnam War groups, radical student groups, young workers' groups. When the poverty problem was disappearing for the Japanese middle class during the economic boom in the 1960s, the movements reflected on the problems experienced by traditional progressive movements and did not limit themselves to changing political regimes or policies. First of all, this thesis argues that, against the backdrop of increasing control over workers in offices and factories due to the mass production system, and intensifying competition between young people for academic qualifications, Japanese new leftists aimed to transform their conservative and depoliticized consciousness called "everydayness". Second, this thesis discusses how Japanese new left movements resorted to violence and lost their popular support. The activists regarded direct action, such as confrontation with the police, as a benchmark of how far they had achieved transformation of their conservative consciousness. Whereas confrontational direct action gave a sense of liberation to the activists and promoted greater mobilization of the movements, some community residents suffered physical injury or damage to their property from armed conflicts between protesters and police officers. From around 1970, I argue, the police successfully contained the movements by initlalliy arresting a number of activists and then working with people in the community, who were concerned about new leftists' violent protests against outsiders or within their own groups. In particular the police focused on improving public relations to gain support from the media. This made it possible for the police to successfully stigmatize Japanese new left movements as "extremists" and identify themselves as guardians of citizens from the movements' violence. In this difficult situation many activists were disappointed with the violence and left the movements. Finally, this thesis discusses the legacy of Japanese new left movements for civil society in the 1970s. Against the backdrop of demobilization of the movements, some activists sought to organize urban consumers in order to support organic farming in rural areas while others tried to build fairer relations with people living in other Asian countries who suffered from poverty and political oppression. These activists had in common their clearer understanding of problems caused by the economic boom, such as environmental deterioration or exploitation of developing countries. I also explore the negative legacy of the movements. "New Politics" theories, which were modelled by political change in European industrialized countries after the 1970s, show that new left movements were transformed into "new social movements", which worked on issues like ecology, anti-nuclear power, gender equity, and rights for ethnic minorities, and influenced bureaucracy and political parties. However, widespread disappointment with Japanese new left movements in civil society, which derived from the failure of their violent protests, prevented the movements from playing a role in networking between each protest against rapid modernization in different local communities, and prevented them from "New Politics" agendas to the attention of political institutions.