Popular Democracy in Japan: How Gender and Community are Changing Modern Electoral Politics by Sherry L. Martin (review)

For Sherry L. Martin, women are "average" Japanese voters who have come to demand changes in politics. Informing this perspective are general trends that promote popular de­mocracy, especially local political engagement and the expansion of informal social net­works of special significance for women. Popular Democracy in Japan begins with a set of chapters that highlight discontent with politics since the 1990s and the institutional and elec­toral changes that have enabled local groundswells of support for citizens' greater political voice. Martin views these changes especially through the voices and actions of women even though men, too, have come to demand change and have also benefited from institutional opportunities for increased involvement. General conditions of voter alienation, pursuit of better governance, and institutional reallocation of government responsibilities to local communities thus become the frame for examining how and why women have come to seek more from their leaders. The core argument of the book, which becomes clearest in the later chapters, is that government policies to support "lifelong learning" begun in the 1980s have provided a context for promoting women's empowerment through study groups, hobby cir­cles, and other networks of informal learning that bring women together. The book's main contribution is its use of responses to a national survey, focus group discussions, and local case examples to provide insight into the minds-and sometimes the actions-of voters. At times, however, the author's interpretation goes beyond what the evidence directly supports, and readers are left to question how representative the cases and informants are.

In situating women at the center, Martin observes that Japanese women vote more often than men even though they are also more likely to lack affiliation with a specific party and are the least likely among women in G8 countries to be elected as national representatives. Why this disparity in voting rates despite women's seemingly lesser degree of integration into the established social networks that mobilize voters? The answer, Martin contends, lies in the alternative of informal social networks that enable women to be politically active.

To make this argument, elaborated in the second part of the book, Martin first presents a broader view-not limited to women-of two trends, political alienation and new op­portunities for local participation, that have characterized Japanese politics since the 1990s. Drawing on responses to open-ended questions from a national survey of voters conducted in 2000, Martin sketches a picture of an electorate that feels distant from politicians and believes that ordinary citizens have much to contribute to improving governance. She then juxtaposes against these qualitative statements of disaffection the institutional changes that have led elected leaders, especially at the local level, to heed and adapt to these voices. As national politicians have tried to respond to citizens' demands, she explains, they have borrowed from the leadership styles of local politicians. Martin casts a number of shifts in Japanese politics as the product of demands for stronger leaders, demands that have been voiced through recall votes, referenda, and citizen-backed candidates. A prolonged process of administrative decentralization that began in the 1990s has given greater control to local executives who are able to "assume a more prominent role in setting policy agendas, build­ing legislative coalitions, and assembling independent power bases" (p. 51). Martin's take on these trends is that local citizen engagement has led national politicians to learn from local politicians, listen to citizens more, and create more opportunities for direct feedback from citizens to elites.

Chapters 3 and 4 draw on focus group discussions and other forms of qualitative data to identify patterns through which citizens-primarily women-have become politically in­volved. The examination in chapter 3 of citizen engagement in Nagano illustrates efforts to develop new relationships among local administrators, citizens, and national officials. Unlike the "traditional" (and mostly male) networks that often mobilized voters in...