In 1960 millions of Japanese citizens took to the streets for months of protest against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (Anpo) and its forcible ratification by the Kishi government. In the decades that followed, the Anpo era citizens' movements exerted a major influence on the organization and political philosophies of the anti-Vietnam War effort, local residents' environmental movements, alternative lifestyle groups, and consumer movements. Organizing the Spontaneous departs from previous scholarship by focusing on the significance of the Anpo protests on the citizens' drive to transform Japanese society rather than on international diplomacy. It shows that the movement against Anpo comprised diverse, at times conflicting, groups of politically conscious actors attempting to reshape the body politic.

The first sustained analysis of the Japanese women's liberation movement of the '70s, with its lessons for contemporary politics

Conformist, mute and malleable? Andrews tackles head-on this absurd caricature of Japanese society in his fascinating history of its militant sub-cultures, radical societies and well-established traditions of dissent Following the March 2011 tsunami and Fukushima nuclear crisis, the media remarked with surprise on how thousands of demonstrators had flocked to the streets of Tokyo. But mass protest movements are nothing new in Japan and the post-war period experienced years of unrest and violence on both sides of the political spectrum: from demos to riots, strikes, campus occupations, faction infighting, assassinations and even international terrorism. This is the first comprehensive history in English of political radicalism and counterculture in Japan, as well as the artistic developments during this turbulent time. It chronicles the major events and movements from 1945 to the new flowering of protests and civil dissent in the wake of Fukushima. Introducing readers to often ignored aspects of Japanese society, it explores the fascinating ideologies and personalities on the Right and the Left, including the student movement, militant groups and communes. While some elements parallel developments in Europe and America, much of Japan's radical recent past (and present) is unique and offers valuable lessons for understanding the context to the new waves of anti-government protests the nation is currently witnessing.

Drawing on interviews with one hundred young Japanese women engaged in a spectrum of voluntary political groups, Susan J. Pharr explores how politically active women overcome the constraints that bar or limit the political participation of the average woman. The book treats political volunteers as agents of social change in a process of role redefinition by which prevailing concepts of women's roles gradually adjust to accommodate political behavior. Tracing developments that led to the grant of suffrage and other political rights to women during the Allied occupation, Pharr sets the stage for an analysis of that process as it unfolds in the experience of individual women. She uses women's images of self and society and issues of political and gender role socialization, career and life expectations, and political role and participation to develop a three-fold typology for looking at political women in Japan. She examines both the satisfactions of political volunteerism—from the exhilaration of addressing a crowd from a sound truck to the pleasure of speaking "men's language"—and the psychological and social costs associated with it. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1981.