Making Japanese Citizens: Civil Society and the Mythology of the Shimin in Postwar Japan (review)

Chapter 5 of Making Japanese Citizensstarts with this quote taken from a 2006 statement by the Deliberative Council on National Lifestyle: "Compared with back then (ten years ago) the meaning of the term shiminhas changed. There is no need to get caught up in past complications" (p. 195). Avenell obviously thinks differently about this matter—and his book proves him right. If you seek to understand the foundations of the "state-society dynamic" in Japan (p. 224), there is indeed a need to get caught up in the story of the several shifts in meaning of the term shimin (citizen).

Avenell takes his readers back not only ten years, but a full sixty years on his journey of discovering the different notions of shimin, that is, ideas of how citizens can—and probably should—participate in public life. The book's five main chapters introduce the evolution of Japan's citizen-state relations. Working in chronological order, Avenell starts with the immediate postwar years in chapter 1 before devoting a chapter each to two decisive phases of citizen action in Japan: the Anpo struggle, when citizens took to the streets in protest against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, and protests against the Vietnam war carried out by the activist group Beheiren (Betonamu Ni Heiwa O! Shimin Rengo). In chapter 4, the focus turns to local activism in the mid-1970s, which was mainly centered on environmental issues. Finally, chapter 5 acquaints us with the more recent developments of citizen action in the 1980s and 1990s.

Given this structure, readers with a background in social movement research may expect Avenell to present a study along the lines of seemingly endless repetitions of the mobilization and demobilization phases of social movement activism. Most prominently, Sidney Tarrow's concept of cycles of contention comes to mind. ¹ Avenell, however, moves beyond this cyclical approach. He does so very skillfully, by repeatedly drawing our attention to the book's core theme—the changing notion of citizenship. Avenell aims to explore "how the shiminidea and civic activism evolved from a stance of resolute antiestablishmentism in the late 1950s to symbols for self-responsible, noncontentious, participatory citizenship in the Japanese nation by the 1990s" (p. 6). This, indeed, is a historical puzzle that has not yet been tackled directly in social science research on Japan.

While Avenell claims that his study is based on three concepts of social movement theory, namely, "the theory of ideational framing processes, the related concept of collective action frames, and the notions of movement intellectuals" (p. 6; italics Avenell's), for large parts of the analytical chapters he focuses solely on the role of public figures he describes as "movement intellectuals." Using an impressive quantity of historic sources and recent academic studies—the overwhelming majority of which this book makes accessible in English for the first time—Avenell meticulously tracks down evidence for when and how particular intellectuals became key figures of shimin activism in Japan. While he is thorough in showing how these movement intellectuals framed certain core issues central to the groups they attempted to lead, he does not explain in equal depth how these core issues spread among the group members and how so-called collective action frames worked in practice to help some of these movements succeed in their goals.

I have one more point of critique before returning to my praises of the book. While Avenell's sharp focus on the shimin groups themselves surely allows for the most valuable insights into the various movements, it also adds some vulnerability to the study. On numerous occasions, the author acknowledges the importance of what social movement researchers call "political opportunity structure," yet at no point does he clarify the basic structures of Japan's political system. Nor does he provide information on modern Japanese history that would...