Accidental Activists: Victim Movements and Government Accountability in Japan and South Korea by Celeste L. Arrington (review)

This extensively researched and succinctly written book effectively compares the processes and outcomes of several major movements for victims' redress from governments in Japan and Korea. The focus is on campaigns that developed especially from the 1990s, an era of perceived "judicialization of politics, enabled by democratization in Korea in 1987 and more competitive electoral politics in Japan since 1993" (p. 203), when victims sought redress from governments in Japan and Korea. The focus is on campaigns that developed especially from the 1990s, an era of perceived "judicialization of politics, enabled by democratization in Korea in 1987 and more competitive electoral politics in Japan since 1993" (p. 203), when victims sought redress for poor decisions regarding Hansen's disease (leprosy, as discussed in chapter 3), blood tainted with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) (chapter 4), and abductions by North Korean authorities (chapter 5).

Arrington examines not just the respective victims' contestations with the state but also the nature and timing of their interactions with key mediating institutions (chapter 2): the legal profession (to pursue litigation), the media (providing publicity for their causes), and activist groups (for lobbying). In particular, she emphasizes how too much early engagement with politicians—even "elite allies"—aimed at achieving legislative or bureaucratic intervention, as occurs with greater frequency in Korea's more open-textured democratic process, may lead perversely to poorer redress outcomes as the issue becomes increasingly polarized politically.

By contrast, due to the more centralized and fact-oriented media as well as smaller-scale nongovernmental organzations (NGOs) in Japan, victims there relied to a greater degree on litigation for conflict escalation. As court cases were filed and occasionally won or settled, typically across multiple jurisdictions, victims of Hansen's disease and HCV-tainted blood supplies began to generate more local media and community support, and eventually national coverage that both opposition and government politicians had to respond to. It was also easier to sign up victims for lawsuits in Japan by provisions allowing for claimants not to be identified. But several also made their identities and claims very public and indeed were foregrounded by their lawyers, both in and out of court—expanding their impact on the wider public discourse, as well as the victims' legitimacy as "accidental activists" rather than party-political actors.

Arrington consequently found that the outcomes achieved in Japan were generally better than in Korea across the four main dimensions typically emphasized by victims, for similar types of largely contemporary claims against their respective governments, as summarized in Table 1 (combining and adapting Arrington's Tables 3.2, 4.2, and 5.3). The partial exception was for family members abducted by the North Korean government, much more frequently from South Korea than from Japan. Yet this was because, even in Japan, the matter became very political early on, due significantly to Abe Shinzō (first when chief cabinet secretary in 2002 in the administration of Koizumi Jun'ichirō, less so when serving as prime minister for under a year over 2006–7, more so after regaining the prime ministership from 2012).

Arrington concludes (chapter 5) with three shorter case studies seen as supporting her broader thesis. For victims impacted by the Fukushima power plant meltdown and evacuations after the devastating earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, "because politicians, bureaucrats, and the nuclear industry officially took up the question of compensation so quickly after the disaster, redress claimants did not have the time or the impetus to build up broader social pressure specifically for comprehensive redress," resulting in various compromises (p. 191). Similarly, "Korean political elites' early involvement on questions of redress for victims' families and fact-finding after the [2014 Sewol] ferry disaster politicized the issue to the extent that partisan bickering delayed and eventually watered down redress measures" (p. 193). Arrington further looks to France, another traditionally strong state where "the bureaucracy had historically...