Handbook of Civil Society in Japan

Civil society in Japan is a large and multifaceted sphere with a diversity of actors pursuing various social, political, and economic objectives. This handbook brings together twenty-one leading experts to provide comprehensive and up-to-date analyses of civil society in Japan.

Simon Avenell is Professor of modern Japanese history at the Australian National University. He focuses on social, political, and intellectual developments after 1945. His books include Making Japanese Citizens (University of California Press, 2010), Transnational Japan in the Global Environmental Movement(University of Hawai’i Press, 2017), and Asia and Postwar Japan(Harvard University Press, 2022). In 2025 he will publish A History of Postwar Japan: Recovery, Prosperity, and Transformation (University of Hawai’i Press). He is currently conducting research on generational politics in contemporary Japan. Akihiro Ogawa is Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His core research interest lies in contemporary Japan and Asia, focusing on civil society. His research is widely published with more than 80 publications, and his most recent solo-authored monograph is Antinuclear Citizens: Sustainable Policy and Grassroots Activism in Post-Fukushima Japan (Stanford University Press, 2023). He chairs the Asian Civil Society Research Network (https: //asiancivilsociety.com/), founded in 2017, and is currently working on legislative transparency with parliamentary monitoring organizations across Asia.