Ecological Modernisation and Japan

Ecological Modernization and Japan In the 1990s, Japan gradually began to turn green and started to experiment with mo...

Author: Brendan F. D. Barrett

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Ecological Modernization and Japan

In the 1990s, Japan gradually began to turn green and started to experiment with more participatory forms of environmental governance. Ecological Modernization and Japan explores this transformation and looks at Japan as a case for ecological modernization while contextualizing the discussion within its unique history and recent discussions about globalization and sustainability. It makes a significant contribution to the ecological modernization debate by unpacking the Japanese environmental experience. Leading scholars in the field from Japan, the USA and the UK examine existing pressures on, and changes to, domestic environmental management structures. In addition, the book explores tensions that have emerged in relation to, and discourses that surround, the contemporary form of environmental governance in Japan. This implies the need for Japan to respond to global policy initiatives in the postJohannesburg Summit era while, at the same time, incorporating concerns about the importance of promoting new indigenous approaches to policy-making that are based more firmly on the cultural characteristics of the Japanese. Brendan Barrett is an Academic Programme Officer at the United Nations University, Japan. He is the co-author of Environmental Policy and Impact Assessment in Japan (1991) and co-editor of Human Development and the Environment (2001).

Ecological Modernization and Japan Edited by Brendan F.D.Barrett

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2005 Brendan F.D.Barrett All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-02331-5 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-415-35166-9 (Print Edition)

To my wonderful wife and children Chizu, Erin and Rian

Contents

List of figures

vii

List of tables

viii

List of contributors

ix

Preface

xi

Acknowledgments List of abbreviations

xiii xv

PART 1 Background

1

1

Ecological modernization and Japan BRENDAN F.D. BARRETT AND DANA R. FISHER

3

2

Environmental discourses in a developmental state BRENDAN F.D. BARRETT

13

PART 2 Policies, actors and institutions

25

3

Building a national environmental regime BRENDAN F.D. BARRETT

27

4

Foundations of local environmental governance BRENDAN F.D. BARRETT AND MIKOTO USUI

49

5

The transformation of social movements and civil society JEFFREY BROADBENT AND BRENDAN F.D. BARRETT

67

6

Environmental values and ecological modernization BRENDAN F.D. BARRETT

89

PART 3 Issues and responses 7

Transformation of the development process BRENDAN F.D. BARRETT

109 111

vi

8

Ecologically modern industrialization BRENDAN F.D.BARRETT AND ANDREA REVELL

129

9

Japan in the greenhouse—the challenge of addressing rising emissions MIRANDA A.SCHREURS

149

Conclusions BRENDAN F.D.BARRETT

167

Bibliography

181

Index

211

10

Figures

2.1 Internalization of environmental constraints 5.1 Increase in post-materialist values in Japan, 1981–1997 6.1 Typology of environmental knowledge orientations 6.2 Willingness to accept tax increases for environmental protection purposes 6.3 Willingness to accept price increases for environmental protection purposes 6.4 Economy versus environment 6.5 Japanese views on science, nature and the environment (ISSP 1992) 6.6 Comparison of the environmental values from the ISSP and GOES 6.7 Analysis of NIES data using Cohen’s environmental knowledge orientations 6.8 Environmental knowledge orientations of youth in Asia-Pacific 7.1 Procedures for the Aichi Expo 2005 EIA 8.1 Changes in eco-efficiencies for final energy consumption, CO2 emissions and domestic waste 8.2 Eco-efficiency rates for other air pollutants 9.1 Per capita carbon dioxide emissions in the five EM states from the consumption and flaring of fossil fuels, 1980–2000

17 84 92 96 96 98 99 99 101 105 124 133 134 159

Tables

2.1 3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 5.1 6.1 6.2

Evolution of environmental related discourses in Japan Comparison of OECD reviews of Japan’s environmental performance Major environmental legislation, 1990–2003 Main features of cooperative management regimes Environmental planning experience in four localities Chronological comparison of environmental movements in Japan International surveys on environmental attitudes in Japan Percentage correct on knowledge of environmental science items among various groups in Japan 6.3 Distribution of Japanese public attitudes on items related to the NEP 6.4 Regression analysis of value and behaviour—Japan and the Netherlands 6.5 Comparison of ISSP 2000 results for ecologically modern states 7.1 Chronology of the enactment and implementation of the EIA Law, 1994–1999 10.1 Ecological footprints for ecologically modern countries

16 32 32 51 58 71 93 94 95 102 103 119 171

Contributors

Brendan F.D.Barrett is an Academic Programme Officer at the United Nations University, Japan. He is the co-author of Environmental Policy and Impact Assessment in Japan (Routledge 1991) and co-editor of Human Development and the Environment (UNU Press 2001). He has written extensively on Japanese approaches to impact assessment, integrated environmental management, Local Agenda 21 and decentralization. He received a B.Sc. in Town and Country Planning from Heriot-Watt University (1983) and his Ph.D. from Oxford Brookes University (1997). Jeffrey Broadbent received his B.A. in Religious Studies—Buddhism from the University of California at Berkeley (1974), an MA in Regional Studies—Japan from Harvard University (1975) and the Ph.D. in Sociology also from Harvard University (1982). He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota. The main theme of his research has been the effects of social networks on environmental and labour politics and protest movements in Japan. His book Environmental Politics in Japan: Networks of Power and Protest (Cambridge 1998) won two awards. Dana R.Fisher is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University. Her research falls at the nexus of political and environmental sociology. She has written a number of articles on the theory of ecological modernization. Presently, she is working on projects that explore the ways that civil society participates in political processes on the local, national and international levels. She is the author of National Governance and the Global Climate Change Regime (Rowman & Littiefield Publishers 2004). She holds an A.B. from Princeton University, and a Master’s in Science and Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Andrea Revell is a Researcher at the Small Business Research Centre, Kingston University, London. She has an M.Sc. in environmental management and an industry background in qualitative market research. Recent works include an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded qualitative study exploring processes of ecological modernization amongst small and medium-sized firms in

x CONTRIBUTORS

the UK, and a similar study of ecological modernization within the Japanese small firm sector. Miranda A.Schreurs is Associate Professor in the Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan (1996). Schreurs is author of Environmental Politics in Japan, Germany, and the United States (Cambridge University Press 2002) and co-editor of Ecological Security in Northeast Asia (Yonsei University Press 1998) and of The Internationalization of Environmental Protection (Cambridge University Press 1997). She currently has a volume, co-edited with In-taek Hyun, under review that is tentatively entitled The Environmental Dimension of Asian Security: Conflict and Cooperation in Energy, Resources, and Pollution. Mikoto Usui has taught at a number of Japanese universities including the Graduate School of Management and Public Policy Studies at the Tsukuba University, the Graduate School of Media and Governance at Keio University and the Graduate School of International Business and Cultural Studies, Shukutoku University. His areas of specialization include international development, international negotiation and international political economy. He has extensive experience working in the international agencies including UNIDO, the OECD and Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations, New York.

Preface

At the end of the 1980s, when Riki Therivel and I were working on our book on environmental policy and impact assessment in Japan, we were concerned that hegemony of interests groups favouring economic development and the powerlessness of those favouring environmental protection would continue to undermine measures to integrate meaningfully environmental policies into the administrative planning process in Japan. Those were the days when we would regularly come across newspaper articles and academic papers describing Japan as an environmental renegade in relation to the destruction of tropical rainforests and the exploitation of endangered species. Japan’s bubble economy was close to bursting point and new major infrastructure projects, golf courses and resorts were springing up across the nation. Everything changed in the 1990s and we have seen a marked shift in the direction of Japanese environmental policy with new legislation and administrative reforms. Consequently, the traditional Japanese approaches to environmental management have been both challenged and transfigured in response to internal pressures (e.g. public concern over complex pollution issues such as dioxin and environmental hormones) and trans-national demands (e.g. the need to respond to global climate change). This on-going process of change has been protracted and contentious; dramatic in some areas while dormant and contested in others. Nevertheless, significant improvements in some aspects of the nation’s environmental performance have attracted international attention and have led leading academics to categorize Japan as a member of a group of five ecologically modernized societies which also includes Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Commenting on the case of Japan, various researchers mention that the country stands out largely due to the energy efficiency of its economy. Others consider that Japan has made significant improvements in recent years and suggest that it offers a different path for the developing world based on the adoption of environmental technologies as well as sophisticated control pollution and energy efficiency measures. However, some commentators are less convinced and argue, for instance, that Japan has witnessed only a relatively minor decoupling of economic output and environmental impact, with gains in environmental efficiency being offset by an expansion of output. Here we can clearly distinguish two conflicting interpretations of Japan’s environmental performance. In this volume, we will use ecological modernization as an analytical tool to examine recent efforts in Japan to better integrate environmental

xii PREFACE

and economic concerns. This theory, which has been the source of significant dispute within the environmental social sciences about the relationship between modernization and environmental quality, focuses on the feasibility of attaining environmental improvements through the transformation of production and consumption patterns. Put simply, ecological modernization looks at how contemporary societies deal with environmental issues by concentrating on reforms of social practices and institutional changes. In recent years, many countries around the world have been analysed for their level of ecological modernization and leading social thinkers have discussed the relevance of this theoretical approach. Ironically, although Japan has been described as one of the best examples of an ecologically modernized society, to date, no comprehensive studies have focused on the applicability of the theory of ecological modernization to Japanese experience. As such, this volume makes a significant contribution to the ecological modernization debate by unpacking the Japanese environmental experience. In particular, the volume tests the explanatory power of this theory of the societyenvironment relationships in the context of the recent evolution of Japanese environmental management at the national and local level. It examines existing pressures on, and changes to, domestic environmental administrative structures. In addition, the volume explores tensions that have emerged in relation to, and discourses that surround, the contemporary form of environmental governance in Japan. This implies the need for Japan to respond to global policy initiatives in the post Johannesburg Summit era while at the same time incorporating concerns about the importance of promoting new home-grown approaches to policy-making more firmly based on the distinct cultural, geographic and environmental characteristics.

Acknowledgments

As with any major endeavour, this book would not have been possible without the support and guidance of many good friends and colleagues. In particular, I would like to thank Dana Fisher and Sombo Yamamura. Without their inspiration I would never have started working on this book. I would like to express my gratitude to Jeffrey Broadbent, Dana Fisher, Andrea Revell, Miranda Schreurs and Mikoto Usui for their contributions and deep insights on both ecological modernization and on the Japanese approach to the environmental management. I also appreciate the supportive comments received on some of the draft chapters by John Dryzek, Arthur Mol, Andrew Gouldson, Awais Piracha, Grant Boyle, Eric Williams and Yasuhiko Hotta. Sections of Chapter 1 are adapted from D.R.Fisher and W.R.Freudenburg (2001) ‘Ecological Modernization and Its Critics’, Society and Natural Resources, Vol. 14, No. 8:701–709. Permission was granted by Taylor & Francis to reproduce this material. Chapter 4 is partially based on an article by B.F.D.Barrett and M.Usui (2002) ‘Local Agenda 21 in Japan: Transforming Local Environmental Governance’, in Local Environment, Vol. 7, No. 1:46–67. The journal’s web site is http:// www.tandf.co.uk/journals. Again, I thank Taylor & Francis for giving permission to reproduce part of this paper. Chapter 5 extensively develops the ideas presented by Jeffrey Broadbent and first published in U.Desai (2002) Environmental Politics and Policy in Industrialized Countries from Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. I would like to thank MIT Press for kindly providing permission to utilize this material. Chapter 6 draws on a paper by B.F.D.Barrett, A.Kuroda and K. Miyamoto (2002) ‘Ecological Modernisation, Environmental Knowledge and Societal Change: Attitudes and Behaviour of Young People in Japan’, International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, Vol. 11, No. 3:237–261. Permission to reproduce parts of this article was provided by Professor John Lidstone, co-editor of the IRGEE. I would also like to thank Professor Harutoshi Funbashi of Hosei University, Japan for kindly providing permission to rework Figure 2.1, Professor Wilhelm Vosse for the data in 6.5 and the Ministry of the Environment of Japan for granting permission to use Figures 8.1 and 8.2. I am thankful for the invaluable advice, assistance and guidance offered by Katsunori Suzuki and Yuko Doi of the Ministry of Environment, Setsuo Iuchi of the Ministry for Economy, Trade and Industry, Kiyohiko Hayashi, Motonari Umakoshi

xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

and Yasunari Shigemoto of the Aichi Expo Association, Ms Midori Aoyagi-Usui (National Institute for Environmental Studies), Hiroshi Ohta (Aoyama Gakuin University) and Fumikazu Yoshida (Hokkaido University), Atsushi Kuroda (Iwate Prefectural Government), Kaoru Miyamoto (Intellectual Property Bank), Changki Kwon (Institute for Global Environmental Strategies), Michie Kishigami (ICLEI Japan), Seiko Yamazaki (Dentsu Institute), Michael Danaher (Central Queensland University) and Hisayoshi Mitsuda (Bukkyo University). Work on this book has been supported by the United Nations University and I would like to thank Professor A.H.Zakri, Director of the Institute of Advanced Studies, who allowed me to initiate the project and Rector Hans van Ginkel who supported my work, gave me valuable insights and provided me the opportunity to bring the manuscript to completion. Last but not least, I would like to express my thanks to Sian Mills at Frank Cass for commissioning the manuscript and especially to Stephanie Rogers, editor of Asian Studies at Routledge, who took over the role at a late stage and who did a brilliant job in providing help, guidance and support.

Abbreviations

BIE CCEPC CEC CMR CO CO2 COD COLGEI COP CRG DIVS DP EBL EBP EIA EIS EM EMS EU FCCC FEO GDP GEF GEOS HC ICLEI ISO

Bureau International des Expositions Central Council for Environmental Pollution Control Central Environment Council cooperative management regime carbon monoxide carbon dioxide chemical oxygen demand Coalition of Local Governments for Environmental Initiatives Conference of the Parties (signatories to the FCCC) Comprehensive Research Group on Environmental Impact Assessment Dentsu International Values Survey Democratic Party of Japan Environment Basic Law Environment Basic Plan Environmental Impact Assessment Environmental Impact Statement ecological modernization environmental management systems European Union Framework Convention on Climate Change Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren) gross domestic product Global Environment Forum Global Environment Survey hydrocarbons International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives International Organization for Standardization

xvi ABBREVIATIONS

ISSP JBIC JCP JEA JEC

JICA JSP LA21 LDP LOE MAFF METI MHW MITI MLIT MoC MoE MoF MoFA MoT NACS-J NCC NEP NET NGO NHK NIES NK NMVOCs NOx NPO ODA OECD OPEC

International Social Survey Programme Japan Bank for International Cooperation Japan Communist Party Japan Environment Agency Japan Environmental Corporation (successor to PCSC; in April 2004, JEC was reorganized and divided between a number of new agencies including the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan (ERCA) and the Japan Environmental Safety Corporation (JESCO)) Japan International Cooperation Agency Japan Socialist Party Local Agenda 21 Liberal Democratic Party litres of oil equivalent Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (formerly MITI) Ministry of Health and Welfare Ministry of International Trade and Industry (now METI) Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry of Construction Ministry of the Environment Ministry of Finance Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ministry of Transport Nature Conservation Society of Japan Nature Conservation Council new environmental paradigm Network Movement non-government organization Nippon Hyoso Kyoka—Japan Broadcasting Corporation National Institute for Environmental Studies New Komeito (Clean Government Party) non-methane volatile organic compounds nitrogen oxide not for profit organization Official Development Assistance Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries

ABBREVIATIONS xvii

PCA PCB PCSC POS PP PPP RPS SD SEA SOx TOE ToP UNCED UNU US WBCSD WSSD WVS

Pollution Control Agreement polychlorinated biphenyl Pollution Control Service Corporation political opportunities structure Pollution Prevention polluter pays principle renewable portfolio standards sustainable development Strategic Environmental Assessment sulphur oxide tons of oil equivalent treadmill of production United Nations Conference on Environment and Development United Nations University United States World Business Council for Sustainable Development World Summit on Sustainable Development World Values Survey

xviii

Part 1 Background

2

1 Ecological modernization and Japan1 Brendan F.D.Barrett and Dana R.Fisher

There is some empirical evidence that such developmental states [as Japan] with strong links with society are not only able to pursue a successful industrialization path or transform traditional industrialization patterns to fulfill the requirements of reflexive modernization…they also have a good basis for effectively and rather quickly reforming industrialization patterns into more environmentally sound directions. (Mol 2001b: 132) Ecological modernization has come to be known as one of the most promising ways to explain the potential for a societal shift to a less wasteful form of interaction between humans and the natural environment (but see Blüdhorn 2000; Pellow et al 2000). The theory, which has brought about significant, and at times heated, debate within the social sciences (and particularly within the environmental sociology and political science communities), deals with the practicability of attaining environmental improvements through transformation of production and consumption patterns. Although the theory has recently been applied to all types of nation-states (e.g. Mol and Sonnenfeld 2000; Mol 2001b), it has been mostly used when examining transformations in society—environment relationships in industrial democracies (Weale 1992; Hajer 1995; Mol 1995; Dryzek 1997; Young 2000). As part of these transformations, many scholars have highlighted the role played by the emergence of new, diverse coalitions and the way that they work to assure the political viability of environmental protection measures (e.g. Hajer 1995; Cohen 1997). This volume builds on existing research undertaken in Europe and elsewhere by looking deeply at the level and extent of ecological modernization in Japan. There are a number of reasons why Japan represents an interesting case study. First, it is important to recall that Japan is the first industrialized democracy in the non-Western world (Ishida and Krauss 1999), with a post-industrial economy (Martin and Stronach 1992). Second, it is the world’s second largest economy and constitutes one of the world’s most affluent and sophisticated consumer and industrial markets (IMF 2003). Third, Japan’s history of post-war economic growth and the associated ‘pollution debacle’ has been well documented (Broadbent 1998, 2002a) and its impact on the global environment is considered to be enormous (Schreurs 2002). In

4 BRENDAN F.D.BARRETT AND DANA R.FISHER

the past, moreover, Japan has also been described as a pioneer with regard to the development of innovative environmental policy measures, particularly in the 1970s (Jänicke 2000), as an ecological front-runner (Mol and Sonnenfeld 2000) and environmental leader (Schreurs 2002).2 Further, the recent improvements in Japan’s overall environmental performance are beginning to receive some attention outside of the country (see OECD 2002; Scruggs 2003) and this volume builds upon these generally positive appraisals using ecological modernization as the main analytical framework. The pages that follow are broken down into three sections. First, the literature on the theory of ecological modernization is discussed. Next, we briefly review those works that have connected the theory to Japan in order to contextualize our project within the relevant literature. Finally, we outline the contents of the study that follows. The theory of ecological modernization Ecological modernization was presented in the German language by Joseph Huber (1985, 1991). With the publication of a modified version of the theory in English by Spaargaren and Mol in 1992, it has been embraced by a number of scholars—most of them environmental sociologists and/or political scientists—around the world (see e.g. Simonis 1989; Spaargaren and Mol 1992; Weale 1992; Mol and Spaargaren 1993; Hajer 1995; Mol 1995; Christoff 1996; Jänicke et al 1996; Dryzek 1997; Gouldson and Murphy 1997; Mol 1997; Spaargaren 1997; Giddens 1998; Mol 1999; Blüdhorn 2000; Buttel 2000a, 2000b; Cohen 2000; Leroy and van Tatenhove 2000; Mol 2000a, 2000b; Mol and Sonnenfeld 2000; Mol and Spaargaren 2000; Pellow et al 2000; Spaargaren 2000a; Spaargaren 2000a; Spaargaren and van Vliet 2000; Young 2000; Fisher and Freudenburg 2001; Mol 2001b; Fisher 2002; Dryzek et al 2003; Eckersley 2004). To date, however, the theory has been interpreted in many conflicting ways. The discussion in this chapter, accordingly, focuses on the work that has attempted to clarify key issues, much of which has been written by the most prolific supporters of the theory itself: Arthur Mol and Gert Spaargaren. In its original form, the theory of ecological modernization presents a complex interpretation of post-industrial society (for a detailed description, see Mol 1997). More specifically, there are two main components of ecological modernization that distinguish it from most past work on society-environment relationships. First, the theory explicitly describes environmental improvements as being economically feasible; indeed, entrepreneurial agents and economic/market dynamics are seen as playing leading roles in bringing about needed ecological changes. Second, in the context of the expectation for continued economic development, ecological modernization depicts the emergence of coalitions of political actors promoting the political feasibility of environmental protection. Within ecological modernization theory, these two components are associated with the growing independence (or loosening of the restraints) of the ecological sphere from the political and economic spheres in state and industrial policy-making (Spaargaren and Mol 1992; Mol 1995, 2001b).

ECOLOGICAL MODERNIZATION IN JAPAN 5

A relatively comprehensive summary of ecological modernization by Mol and Spaargaren (2000) identifies three key stages in the development of the theory. During the first stage, which they see as roughly covering the decade of the 1980s, ecological modernization emphasized technological innovations in industrial production, particularly in the form of market actors and dynamics that overlooked human agency. During the second stage, extending roughly between the late 1980s and the mid–1990s, ecological modernization moved away from technology toward a focus on the institutional and cultural dynamics of industrial production of advanced industrialized nations, on the national or comparative level. During the third and most recent stage, since the mid-1990s, Mol and Spaargaren state that recent research ‘is characterized by innovations in three fields: studies on industrial production are complemented by attention paid to ecological transformations related to consumption processes; an increasing emphasis on national studies in non-OECD countries (new industrializing countries, less developed countries, and the transitional economies in Central and Eastern Europe) in addition to OECD countries; and growing attention paid to the global dynamics of ecological modernization’ (2000:2). Within this discussion on the evolution of the theory, the authors point out that ecological modernization has branched off into both a theory of social continuity and transformation as well as a political programme for change.3 Mol himself notes the existence of analytical/descriptive and normative/prescriptive conceptions of ecological modernization (1997:140; for a fuller discussion, see Fisher and Freudenburg 2001); in his own words, the first conception has to do with ‘characterizing and analysing the way contemporary industrial societies (are trying to) cope with environmental crisis’ while the second is a question of ‘feasibility and desirability of such a normative course or project for environmental reform’. Changes in the performance of what has come to be known as the ‘environmental state’ or ‘green state’ (for a full discussion, see Frank et al. 2000a, 2000b; Mol and Buttel 2002; Dryzek et al 2003; Eckersley 2004; Fisher and Freudenburg 2004) have been seen as going together logically with increasing engagement with economic actors and new roles emerging for civil society actors, such as nongovernmental organizations. The potential for improved ecological outcomes, in short, is also seen as being dependent on changes in the institutional structure of society (see e.g. Mol 2000a). This point is underscored by studies that recognize the linkage between ecological modernization and political modernization (Spaargaren 1997; Leroy and van Tatenhove 2000; Mol 2000b). In the words of Spaargaren, ‘the central feature of the ecological modernization approach as a theory of political modernization is its focus on new forms of political intervention’ (1997:15). Consistent with some other theories of post-industrialized states (for a discussion on links to other social theories, see Seippel 2000), ecological modernization separates social actors into four main sectors: science, industry, civil society and the state. The theory says that modern science and technology emerge as central institutions for ecological reform. In addition, the state is seen as altering its traditionally central role, being transformed to a more decentralized and advisory position. In addition, civil society—sometimes in the form of social movements—is seen as shifting from the role of critically commenting on political issues to that of


being important participants in ecological transformations (Mol 2000a). In essence, ecological modernization sees these sets of political actors and the interrelationships between them—not market forces and economic determinants—as shaping political outcomes in the case of environmental regulations (for a full discussion, see Fisher 2004). Despite the complexity of the theory, the lynchpin of the argument involves technological innovation, which is seen as playing a predominantly beneficial role. Unlike theorists, including those promoting the Treadmill of Production perspective,4 who see technological development as being generally problematic and who in some cases highlight a potential need to stop capitalism and/or the process of industrialization to deal with ecological crises in the developed world (see e.g. Catton 1980; Schnaiberg 1980; O’Connor 1991; Foster 1992; Schnaiberg and Gould 1994), many of the proponents of ecological modernization argue that environmental problems can best be solved through further advancement of technology and industrialization. Buttel summarizes the main themes as follows: Ecological modernization theorists are basically of the view that as much as environmental problems in the past have been caused by an industrially driven process of expanded production and consumption, the solution to environmental problems cannot be found in radical movements that seek to restore the lower levels of output and consumption that prevailed years ago, or in centralized command-and-control regulation. Rather, in the ecological modernization perspective, the solution to environmental problems caused by industrialization requires more industrialization—or ‘superindustrialization’— albeit industrial development of a far different sort than that which prevailed during most of the twentieth century. (Buttel 2001:18) The ecological modernists’ reliance on technology offers a potential point of engagement with the works of other social theorists, such as Habermas (1970), who has focused on technology’s role in post-industrial societies. Reactions to the theory have been complex, ranging from the supportive to the critical, although many reactions lie between the two extremes. Perhaps the most negative reactions have come from scholars who believe that ecological modernization, or what some call ‘sustainable capitalism’ (O’Connor 1994), is not possible or simply a prescription for business as usual (Blowers 1997:853). In essence, these researchers see any theory proposing such an outcome as being bound to fail (see e.g. O’Connor 1994; Cohen 1997; Pellow et al. 2000). Although many of these critiques are rooted in a neo-Marxist perspective, others are not. A notable example involves Anthony Giddens (1998), who argues that ‘ecological modernization skirts some of the main challenges ecological problems pose for social democratic thought’ (p. 58), and that, as a result, the theory is ‘too good to be true’ (p. 57; see also Leroy and van Tatenhove 2000). Other authors provide more nuanced criticisms. Several, for example, have concluded that the work is similar to Beck’s (1987) Risk Society (for a full


discussion, see Mol and Spaargaren 1993; Cohen 1996; Mol 1996; Blowers 1997; Spaargaren 2000b). Most notions of the Risk Society, and thus Beck’s notion of reflexive modernization, resemble many of the works of established environmental socio logical theorists in envisioning a worrisome future, while ecological modernization points to more optimistic expectations. In the words of Mol and Spaargaren, the ecological modernization perspective ‘is a programme belonging to the “simple modernization” phase, making unproblematic use of science and technology in controlling environmental problems’ (1993:454). Mol and Spaargaren (1993) state that their work on ecological modernization is a response to the Risk Society, and Mol (1996) highlights differences and similarities, and then brings both under the heading of reflexive modernization. Buttel has provided a broader criticism, arguing that the theory of ecological modernization ‘lacks an identifiable set of postulates’ (2000a; see also Buttel 2000b), and indicating that the work could be improved if it were rooted in broader theories of the state, such as Evans’s ‘embedded autonomy’ (1995), or Jänicke’s ‘state failure’ (1990). In addition to the critical reactions to ecological modernization, however, there have been a number of positive responses, praising ecological modernization both as a prescription and as a theory. Positive commentary on the prescriptive aspects of the theory has come from authors such as Christoff (1996), O’Neill (1998) and Rinkevicius (2000a). In O’Neill’s own words, ecological modernization offers an innovative method for ‘understanding national environmental policy as embedded in changing international context’ (O’Neill 1998:2), particularly given that ecological modernization sees environmental protection not as a burden on the economy, but as ‘a precondition for future sustainable growth’ (Weale, as cited in O’Neill 1998:14). Some theorists, such as Hajer, are equivocal with respect to the theory and argue that ecological modernization ‘recognizes the environmental crisis as evidence of a fundamental omission in the workings of the institutions of modern society’ (1995:3). Moreover, Eckersley looks at the conditions and virtues of ecological modernization as a ‘new competitive strategy’ for aspiring green states responding to the pressures of economic globalization (Eckersley 2004:70). Within this context, much of the recent empirical research on ecological modernization consists of case studies in which the theory provides a degree of fit for the cases (Frijns et al 2000; Gille 2000; Jokinen 2000; Sonnenfeld 2000; see also Mol 1999). Japan as a case of ecological modernization Within the literature, Japan has been referenced as the first non-Western, industrialized democracy to exhibit features of ecological modernization (see e.g. Jänicke et al 1996; Dryzek 1997; Gouldson and Murphy 1997; Andersen and Massa 2000; Christoff 2000; Gille 2000; Gouldson 2000; Mol and Sonnenfeld 2000; Fisher and Freudenburg 2001; Mol 2001b) but, to date, it has not been rigorously studied (but see Revell 2003; Hotta 2004). It is also a very interesting case study from the perspective of Japan’s significant influence on emerging patterns of environmental governance in the newly industrializing economies in Asia (Ren 2000; Mol 2001b: 134–135). Japan’s response to its air pollution problems in the 1970s is decribed as a


‘paradigmatic’ example of ecological modernization (Hajer 1996:249). Moreover, Dryzek (1997) identifies five ecologically modernized societies—Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. In his own words, Japan stands out in the environmental stakes in large part due to the energy-efficiency of its economy’ (p. 139). Generally, when commenting on ecological modernization and Japan, observers (e.g. Gouldson and Murphy 1997:76; Mol 2001b: 133) refer to empirical studies that indicate structural changes in the Japanese economy and related improvements in environmental performance (see Jänicke et al. 1989, 1996). As mentioned previously, Japan is described as an ‘ecological front-runner’ nation mainly due to its efforts to delink material consumption patterns from economic growth (Mol and Sonnenfeld 2000:12).5 There have been various positive assessments highlighting Japan’s industrial energy savings in the 1970s and 1980s and the pioneering role it played with the adoption of catalytic devices for cars, as well as denitrification and desulphurization technologies for major factories and energy facilities (Tsuru and Weidner 1989; Jänicke et al 1996; Dryzek 1997; Ren 2000). For instance, between 1971 and 1995, Japan achieved the largest improvement in energy intensity (measured in terms of tons of oil equivalent per one thousand 1990 US$ GDP) among industrialized countries and experienced a decoupling of economic growth from CO2 emissions over the same period (emissions increased by only 1.8 per cent per annum compared to a growth of the GDP of 3.6 per cent) (Cruz et al. 2002). This positive assessment is reinforced by the most recent environmental performance review for Japan undertaken by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which notes the significant advancements in recent years with the enactment of a stream of progressive environmental legislation in the 1990s, in tandem with a highly effective mix of policy instruments (OECD 2002). Other commentators, however, argue that Japan has witnessed only a relatively minor decoupling of economic output and environmental impact, with gains in environmental efficiency being offset by an expansion of output (Gouldson and Murphy 1997; Jänicke et al 1997). Further, there have been a number of studies criticizing Japan’s overall environmental performance and indicating that it came close to committing ‘ecological hara-kiri’ in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Tsuru and Weidner 1989; Barrett and Therivel 1991; Ui 1992; Broadbent 1998; Tsuru 1999; Revell 2003) and it has been argued that improvements in the domestic environment can be attributed to transfer of the dirtier elements of its manufacturing industry overseas (Ui 1989c; McDowell 1990; Dryzek 1997; Taylor 1999; Mol 2001b). Japan’s has been described as an environmental laggard (Schreurs 1994), as a reactive state and a foot-dragger on global environmental issues (Clark 2001) and as an environmental renegade, particularly in relation to the loss of tropical rainforests and the exploitation of endangered species (Dauvergne 1997; Hall 2001; Wong 2001). Kerr (2001) criticizes Japan’s environmental track record and claims the Japanese ‘systemic addiction to construction’ (Japan spends nearly 8 per cent of GDP on construction alone, compared to 2 per cent in the US), combined with the absence of an environmental impact assessment law before 1997 (see Chapter 7), has resulted in prolific development destroying much of the nation’s natural habitat and


threatened wildlife species.6 Water and marine pollution, coastal degradation, habitat destruction and biodiversity loss are amongst some of the more serious domestic environmental problems that Japan now faces (OECD 2002). Furthermore, Dryzek states that Japanese environmental policy is made with a ‘minimum of fuss and a maximum of consensus’ which implies that policy-making is dominated by government officials and business executives, described as ‘corporatism without labour’ (Dryzek 1997:141). In this volume, we acknowledge these two contrasting perspectives and argue that in part they help explain why it is difficult to determine whether Japan really is an ecologically modern state (Dryzek 1997; Mol 2001b; Revell 2003). Looking at the Japanese experience, therefore, provides an excellent opportunity to explore further the explanatory powers of ecological modernization as a theory of societyenvironment relationships in the post-industrial world outside of Europe and to examine the factors influencing the accuracy/inaccuracy of the theory’s predictions. In this volume, we will focus on institutional reforms and changes in social practices in Japan from the 1990s onwards. It is our contention that Japan is experiencing a new phase of modernization in terms of its environmental governance system (reminiscent of the third phase of ecological modernization outlined by Mol and Spaargaren 2000), which has been taking place since 1997, coincidental with Japan’s hosting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change third Conference of the Parties.7 In the 1990s, also described as the lost decade because of the long-term economic recession (Kingston 2001), there was a significant increase in civil society activity in Japan (see Yamamoto 1999; Vosse 2000; Barrett and Usui 2002; Hirata 2002; Schwartz and Pharr 2003) and this increase has been given further impetus with the passage of the 1998 Non-Profit Organization Law (see Hirata 2002; Tsujinaka 2003; on deficiencies with law, see Vosse 2000). As we will show in this volume, environmental legislative activity for waste, new energy and environmental impact assessment also increased significantly at around this period and further enhancement of the national environmental regime was marked by the establishment of the Ministry of the Environment in January 2001. Furthermore, there has been an upsurge in business involvement in on-site environmental management such as ISO 14000 and the emergence of new forms of policy dialogue at both the national and local levels. Outline of this volume This volume, accordingly, moves forward to test empirically the claims about the applicability of ecological modernization for Japan, as well as the general feasibility of the theory itself. As a first step in this study, Chapter 2 provides background for this volume with a brief history of Japan’s environmental crisis. The next four chapters look at the roles of policies, actors and institutions. Chapter 3 outlines the institutional changes in the Japanese government and the recent attempts to reformulate the national environmental regime. After looking at the environmental activity within the national state, Chapter 4 presents the foundations of local environmental governance focusing on various locally based environmental projects.


Chapters 5 and 6 present two different sides of civil society in Japan by looking at the issues of social movements and the environment, and public environmental knowledge/values respectively. The last section of the volume provides three case studies. With Chapter 7, we return to the role of the Japanese state by looking at the transformation of the development process. Chapter 8 looks at the role of industrialization in Japan in relation to ecological modernization, focusing on waste management, energy and the role of small and medium-sized enterprises. Chapter 9, in contrast, looks at Japan in comparison with other countries by presenting its role in the emerging international climate change regime as well as the development of a domestic climate change regime to meet the commitments of the Kyoto Protocol. In the concluding chapter, we present a brief comparison of experience in the five leading ecologically modernized countries—Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Of these five, Japan has received the least attention in the academic literature and we specifically address the question of whether Japan really is an ecologically modern society. Notes 1 Sections of this chapter are adapted from Fisher, D.R. and Freudenburg, W.R. (2001) Ecological Modernization and Its Critics: Assessing the Past and Looking toward the Future, Society and Natural Resources 14, 8:701–709. 2 In the early 1990s Japanese industry accounted for around US$30 billion of the global market of environmental technologies and services (Schreurs 2002). 3 This point is reinforced by Young (2000) who argues that ecological modernization represents a new paradigm for social scientists analysing the changing nature of environmental politics and functions as a prescriptive way to refer to programmes of environmental and economic policies. 4 The treadmill of production is characterized by (1) economic expansion—viewed as the core of viable social, economic and environmental policy, (2) increasing consumption—the main role of the state is to guarantee a cycle of production and consumption, (3) solving problems by speeding up the treadmill—the underlying assumption is that economic growth will reduce social and ecological problems and (4) economic expansion via large firms—the view that large firms are the driver of the economy, with all of the above supported by (5) an alliance between capital, labour and government (Schnaiberg et al. 2002). The differences between and the commonalities of ToP and ecological modernization have been widely discussed (Mol 2001b; Fisher 2002; Schnaiberg et al 2002). Mol summarizes the situation as follows: ‘Most Treadmill of Production studies report a major gap between the quite advanced and detailed theoretical analysis of the immanently destructive character of the treadmill of global capitalist production and the suggestions made for concrete trajectories toward social change’ (2001b: 204). Dryzek et al. 2003 provides a slightly different explanation and argues that there are two roads for the development of ecological modernization, that attract different types of environmentalists. Mainstream groups ‘seek the connection of environmental concerns only to the economic imperative of the state’ whereas more radical groups


‘raise questions of legitimation’ and ‘highlight issues of risk and promote the more participatory aspects of modernisation’. 5 Mol and Sonnenfeld qualify their statement by arguing that Japan should be considered as a front-runner only in terms of the policies that ‘transform existing trends of increasing resource consumption and emissions’ rather than in absolute terms of minimal environmental additions or withdrawals per capita. 6 For instance, Japan lays about 30 times as much concrete per square foot as does the United States, with 60 per cent of the Japanese coastline now covered in concrete and 110 out of 113 major rivers dammed (Kerr 2001). 7 Schwartz (2003:14) describes the 1990s as a watershed for Japanese civil society and cites the finding from Yamamoto (1999) regarding the increase in newspaper articles in the three leading Japanese newspapers on NGOs and NPOs from 178 in 1990 to 2,868 in 1997.

12

2 Environmental discourses in a developmental state Brendan F.D.Barrett

Having escaped the bonds of the traditional, undeveloped economy, and unlocked the secrets of growth, the question remains of how to channel that growth so that human needs are met…The problem is profoundly political but at the same time it is a moral and philosophical issue. While it confronts Japan in its most acute form, it is a problem of modern industrial civilization as a whole, and the Japanese failure, or success, in coping with it has huge significance. It is at the root of the problem of establishing social control over the forces of production. (McCormack 2001:25) Japan has been described as the archetypal developmental and construction state (doken kokka) ensnared in endless cycles of public-debt financing for massive infrastructure projects impacting on the environment and social life across the archipelago (Johnson 1995; Woodall 1996; Pollack 1997; Kerr 2001; McCormack 2001). It is characterized as an advanced capitalist, industrialized democracy caught in what appears to be a perpetual and contested choice between economic growth and environmental conservation (Broadbent 1998; Tsuru 1999). In the 1960s and 1970s, Japan was certainly notorious around the world for its pollution crisis (also described as pollution debacle) with names of pollution related diseases like Minamata and itai itai ingrained on the psyche of generations of Japanese (Ui 1972; Huddle and Reich 1975; McKean 1981; Iijima 1984; Torigoe 1989a; Tsuru and Weidner 1989; Ishimure 1990; Mishima 1992; Ui 1992; Broadbent 1998; Kada 1999; Tsuru 1999; George 2001; Keibo 2001; Broadbent 2002a). In the late 1980s, however, critics began to talk about a development crisis throughout Japan that also stretched across national boundaries impacting on the broader environment, but particularly in AsiaPacific (Barrett and Therivel 1991; Dauvergne 1997; Taylor 1999; Hall 2001; Wong 2001). Perhaps to do justice we may now need to present a more nuanced interpretation of Japanese society—environment relationships in the context of recent positive reviews of the nation’s environmental performance, which describe the Japanese as innovators with respect to the creation of new institutions, policies, instruments and technologies in the environmental field and depict Japan as an important ecologically modern state outside of Europe (Dryzek 1997; Mol 2001b; OECD 2002; Revell

14 ENVIRONMENTAL DISCOURSES

2003; Scruggs 2003; Imura 2004). In this chapter we will briefly review the major post-war developments as covered in the literature (Barrett and Therivel 1991; Funabashi 1992; Hoshino 1992; Iijima 1995; Mitsuda 1997; Broadbent 1998; Tsuru 1999; Broadbent 2002a; Ishii 2002). We will look at some of the main environmental discourses that have come to the fore from the late 1990s onwards, which lay the groundwork for the discussions presented in subsequent chapters and point toward an emerging view of a more environmentally benign, Japanese sustainable society. A framework to understand Japanese environmental politics In the analysis presented in this book, ecological modernization is applied as a metatheory or grand narrative. However, where applicable and advantageous we will also use various sub-theories such as political opportunities structure (POS) or cooperative management regimes (CMR) to explore Japanese thinking on, and institutional responses to, contemporary society—environmental interactions (Seippel 2001). Discourses in environmental politics in a given country can be analysed from three perspectives, each offering partial explanations (Schreurs 2002: 22–23). The first perspective explains differences in environmental politics as being culturally specific based on a range of traditional norms, values and beliefs (including religious beliefs). This perspective adopts a cultural framing that refers to the Japanese affinity to nature (e.g. seasonal poetry, bonsai, temple gardens), also described as eco-nationalism with strong links to nihonjinron—the notion of Japanese identity (see Kalland 1995; Asquith and Kalland 1997; Morris-Suzuki 1998; Befu 2001; Thomas 2001). The second perspective explains the influences on political discourses in terms of the acuteness of pollution and the geographic conditions and natural resource endowments where Japan is portrayed as densely populated, highly polluted and dependent on resources from overseas (see Barrett and Therivel 1991; Iijima 1992; Ui 1992; Tsuru 1999; Wong 2001). The third perspective, political opportunities structures (POS), requires that we look into the way that Japanese institutional structures constrain or promote political mobilization (see Chapter 3), as well as prevailing strategies and alliance structures (Kriesi et al. 1995; van der Heijden 1998; Seippel 2001; Broadbent 2002a; Schreurs 2002). Here there is a clear distinction between the openness of the political system to new demands and the capacity of the political system to implement resulting decisions (Dryzek et al. 2003). This in turn influences the strategies adopted by different social movements (confrontational or cooperative) and their likely impact on the outcome (see Chapter 5; also see McKean 1981; Iijima 1992; Vosse 2000; Broadbent 2002a; Reimann 2003). Through POS, it is essential to recognize, especially with regard to Japan, the importance of informal relationships as explanatory factors for political mobilization and the distinction between the exclusive (repressive, confrontational and polarizing) and integrative (facilitative, cooperative and assimilative) strategies of political actors as they combine with the formal state structures (Kriesi et al 1995; van der Heijden 1998; Vosse 2000; George 2001; Seippel 2001; Broadbent 2002a; Danaher 2003; Pekkanen 2003). Moreover, acknowledgment of the changing configurations

BRENDAN F.D.BARRETT 15

of power are central to the POS perspective and help to identify the degree to which more open, participatory policy practices are occurring, whether shifts in ruling alignments are happening, as well as whether new influential alliances are emerging within Japan and trans-nationally (Kriesi et al. 1995; Broadbent 2002b; Schreurs 2002; Dryzek et al. 2003; Reimann 2003). Transitions in the main environmental discourses There is a rich English literature on environmental politics in Japan and this has worked to mould our conceptualization of the Japanese environmentalism (for example, see McKean 1981; Tsuru and Weidner 1989; Barrett and Therivel 1991; Ui 1992; Broadbent 1998; Tsuru 1999; Schreurs 2002). From a POS perspective, the works collectively embrace the notion of a closed political system in Japan with informal and formal polity structures incapable of responding to demands from outside the ruling triad (politicians, bureaucrats and industry). The result was a complex state of affairs (not unique to Japan) characterized by conflict in the 1960s (Ui 1992) and finally dramatic change/accommodation in the 1970s (Broadbent 1998; Tsuru 1999), following the ‘crisis and compromise’ pattern (Calder 1988). Table 2.1 presents the post-war evolution of environmental issues in Japan and incorporates different periods of socio-economic development, institutional reform and policy change (based on Iijima 1979; Broadbent 1998; Funabashi 2001; Ishii 2002). Also included are selected environmental events as well as key theoretical perspectives from leading Japanese social scientists (Torigoe 1989b; Mitsuda 1991; Funabashi 1992; Hoshino 1992; Iijima 1992; Ui 1992; Iijima 1993; Hasegawa 1995; Hasegawa 1996; Mitsuda 1997; Torigoe 1997; Torigoe 1999; Funabashi 2001). The divisions between stages are imprecise and the antecedents for each stage stretch across boundaries deep into the history of Japanese modernization (Totman 1989; Morris-Suzuki 1991; Tsuru 1999). For instance, Totman (1989) explains how the first ecological crisis in Japan took place in the pre-industrial period as a result of excessive logging, and Tsuru (1999) provides insights on pollution problems during early industrialization in the late nineteenth century. Most commentators (Japanese and otherwise) seem to suggest the existence of four or more main stages of interaction between the economy and environment in Japan since the 1950s which relate reasonably closely to Funabashi’s theory of environmental control systems (Funabashi 2001). This theory essentially suggests that the internalization of environmental constraints takes place in four stages beginning with a situation where the environmental and economic spheres are completely separate and shifting to the condition where there is closer integration between the two (stages 2 and 4 are shown in Figure 2.1). The first stage shares many characteristics with the treadmill of production model of laissez-faire economic growth (see Schnaiberg 1980; Schnaiberg and Gould 1994). In the initial post-war period, the pro-growth elite coalition effectively supported the creation of a Japanese-style treadmill of production, wherein greater productivity was the paramount objective, regardless of its social need or impact. In Japan’s Asian-style capitalism, also described as communitarian elite corporatism,


Table 2.1 Evolution of environmental related discourses in Japan

the state essentially, through major government ministries like the Ministry for International Trade and Industry (now the Ministry for Economy, Trade and Industry—METI), played a large role in organizing the economy with military-like efficiency to bring about rapid expansion1 (Okimoto 1989; Sakakibara 1993; Broadbent 1998). Accordingly, the Japanese state did not so much impose rules upon industry as partner with them. When environmental conflicts occurred,


Figure 2.1 Internalization of environmental constraints (source: Funabashi (2001), partly modified).

government ministries tended to function as reasonable brokers or bridge keepers between opposing social and political blocs (Broadbent 2000). The lack of an effective countervailing bloc arising from a continuously vital civil society, coupled with the highly centralized quality of state authority, set the stage for Japan’s past environmental tragedies (McKean 1981). As a result, the widespread and long-held perception of Japan is that of a nation that has suffered a high social intensity of pollution (Huddle and Reich 1975; Ui 1992; Broadbent 1998; Tsuru 1999). During the initial period of development and growth (roughly from the 1950s to the late 1960s) there was only limited government environmental regulation, mainly from local governments such as Tokyo or Osaka (Barrett 1994). Some national environmental legislation was implemented (Water Quality Conservation Law and Factory Effluents Control Law in 1958) but proved ineffective (Barrett and Therivel 1991). Japanese cities grew rapidly, and some seemingly intractable problems came to the fore including high population densities, land shortages, lack of green spaces and lack of public facilities (Shapira et al 1994). An extensive range of serious cases of pollution poisoning occurred including air pollution in most large cities and arsenic poisoning (Morinaga Milk), organic mercury poisoning (Minamata), quinoform poisoning and cadmium poisoning (itai itai disease) (Funabashi 1992; Iijima 1992; Tsuru 1999). The interactions between locally affected communities and the ruling triad tended to be characterized by social exclusion and repression of the


victims (McKean 1981; Ui 1992; Broadbent 1998; Kada 1999), perhaps best understood by the following quote: Over the ages it has come to be a well-accepted principle that in any dispute there are only two positions, the oppressed and the oppressor. As to environmental pollution, there are only the polluters, whose orientation is to ignore the problem, and the victims whose concern is to understand all factors surrounding it. (Ui 1992:6) Japan then entered the second stage described by Funabashi as the ‘imposition of constraints’ with some similarities to Beck’s ‘reflexive modernization’ (as discussed in Chapter 1). This stage, spanning the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, was characterized by widespread environmental disruption from air pollution, noise from new bullet-trains and airport developments. At the same time, we witnessed an explosion of environmental protest/anti-development groups and the initiation of lawsuits against developers as the situation escalated to crisis proportions (Gresser et al. 1981; McKean 1981; Funabashi et al 1985; Barrett and Therivel 1991; Broadbent 1998; Tsuru 1999; Broadbent 2002a). The environmental administration in Japan during this stage has generally been viewed as reactive (Barrett and Therivel 1991; Wong 2001). When the Japanese government did act, the ministries, business leadership and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) negotiated ways to reduce the worst pollution and developed soft control measures to weaken protest movements and opposition political parties, which at the same time worked to fend off long-term sources of challenge to the ruling triad and reduced the scope for the emergence of an autonomous civil society (Barrett and Therivel 1991; Broadbent 1998). The government repeatedly wrote new laws vaguely, without teeth, so as to avoid empowering ordinary citizens to challenge projects and decide issues (Upham 1987; Broadbent 1998). Rather than prevention—assessing and rejecting potentially damaging projects—environmental policies were characterized by post-pollution, elite-controlled technical and administrative solutions to threats to human health. Less visible, creeping forms of pollution, such as toxic waste, soil contamination or groundwater pollution, did not call forth immediate public outcry, so the government ignored them (Yoshida 2002). Similarly, policy measures tended to largely ignore environmental amenities—protection from noise, vibration, crowding and the lack of greenery, and preservation of other species. Nevertheless, we find again progressive local governments responded quickly and initiated new innovative forms of environmental regulation. Furthermore, increased public pressure at the national level resulted in the passage of 14 environmental laws in the so-called 1970 ‘Pollution Diet’ (Gresser et al 1981; Barrett and Therivel 1991; Broadbent 1998). Subsequently, in 1971, the Environment Agency was established. In stage three, from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, at about the same time as ecological modernization was emerging in Europe, the environmental modernizers in Japan suffered a series of major setbacks.2 At this point, following the first oil shock in 1973, the energy crisis overtook the pollution crisis as a national concern. In this


period, Japan experienced economic restructuring induced by high inflation and public sector monetary control. Some environmental regulations were weakened (e.g. NO2 emission standards) and legislative efforts were undermined including the passage of a law on environmental impact assessment (Barrett and Therivel 1991; Tsuru 1999). The Japanese approach to environmental management, during this stage, included a strong physical project orientation with an emphasis on new pollution control technologies, the creation of greater convenience in relation to transport, access to services and amenities, land readjustment in urban areas and land reclamation at the urban waterfront. Key policy instruments included the development of a comprehensive system of emission and environmental quality standards covering air, water quality, noise and odour; establishment of area-wide environmental pollution control programmes in locations with severe pollution problems; emphasis on compensation for environmental damage and detrimental effects on communities and human health; conservation of the natural environment through a system of area designations and efforts to increase the extent of green spaces in urban areas; a wide range of administrative measures to deal with effluent from industrial premises including guidance provision and the establishment of pollution control agreements; use of financial and fiscal incentives to encourage private sector environmental expenditure; and widespread environmental monitoring and public information systems (Tsuru and Weidner 1989; Barrett and Therivel 1991). Impact of recent modernization on Japan—the fourth stage The environmental discourses in the late 1980s in Japan were increasingly influenced by international concerns including global warming, whaling, tropical deforestation and acid deposition in Asia (Dauvergne 1997; Wong 2001; Danaher 2002b; Schreurs 2002). From around 1987–1988, the ruling elite placed growing emphasis on Japan’s leadership role in the use of environmental technology as a potential contribution to the conservation efforts of the international community (Schreurs 1996a; Tsuru 1999). In response to international criticism, there was a noticeable ‘greening’ of leading politicians (including former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita), impacting on national policies and resulting in major increases in Japan’s donations to overseas environmental programmes and increased participation in international efforts to address global climate change.3 For instance, a Council of Ministers for Global Environmental Conservation was established in 1989 and included 19 ministers (out of a total of 21) and was concerned with furthering the development of Japan’s global environmental policies. From 1991 onwards, with the collapse of the bubble economy, Japan experienced falling land prices, major problems for financial institutions, an ever-deepening economic recession and fairly dramatic political change (Kingston 2001). Moreover, following the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, we can note significant efforts by the Japanese administration to respond to the question of sustainable development and to reduce the environmental burden of society as embodied in the 1994 Environment Basic Plan (Imura 1994). Schreurs’s (1996a) review of Japanese environmental policy


highlights how changing discursive practices were evident within the Japanese polity during this period largely as a result of top-down, elite-driven, reactive policy initiatives rather than from grassroots pressure. More specifically, some segments of the ruling triad in Japan began to clearly see the environment as an opportunity and not a burden. Essentially, these changes reflect Funabashi’s theory on the internalization of environmental constraints (Figure 2.1). This dynamic period of change was also characterized by the opening up of policy structures and the emergence of new coalitions around national and global environmental issues. It is argued that: The government, out of concerns for its foreign relations, chose in the early 1990s to pursue global environmental matters. An unintended consequence of this decision was that the state placed pressure upon itself to undo the institutional barriers that it had created to the formation of a vibrant civil society. (Schreurs 2002:258) Schreurs (2002) acknowledges that there is another interpretation that sees Japan’s global stance as that of ‘symbolic politics’ and there is considerable cynicism surrounding recent institutional changes, claiming they are neither extensive nor deep. Taylor (1999) concurs with the view that Japan has in recent years made a concerted effort to recast itself as an environmental leader but argues that such an image is mainly rhetorical since Japan continues to have serious domestic environmental problems (including waste disposal, water and marine pollution, coastal degradation, habitat destruction and biodiversity loss) and plays a dominant role in causing international ones. Crump (1996) remains sceptical of Japanese politicians, bureaucrats and corporations whose ‘tears for the environment have always been of the kind crocodiles are reputed to weep’. So we find ourselves with two scenarios: one which paints Japan moving toward a pattern of pluralistic environmental politics and another which says nothing has really changed in terms of the political opportunity structures but rather we are witnessing measures that are merely cosmetic. In his mid-1990s review of environmental politics in Japan, John Crump argued that the environmental political scene looked like: an incomprehensible tangle of politicians and bureaucrats, regular institutions and ad-hoc groups, companies and consumers, citizens (shimin) and activists, all pulling in different directions and all holding widely varying views of what an ‘ecological society’ might look like. In this, Japan may be no different from other countries. (Crump 1996:115) This complex composition of environmental constituencies and their interaction makes analysis of the overarching contemporary environmental discourses somewhat difficult, especially in the period of dramatic societal change as found in 1990s


Japan. Clearly many significant environmental measures were introduced in this period and increased emphasis was placed on network/partnership styles of environmental governance in Japan bringing together government, citizens, NGOs and business (Broadbent 2002a: 334). This may, in turn, be indicative of new political opportunity structures with fewer barriers to civil society participation. Nevertheless, while remarking on the shift to more pluralist styles of policy-making, the danger of co-option is seen as a tangible threat to the activities of Japanese NGOs by both Broadbent (2002a: 334) and Crump (1996). We will discuss these changes further in Chapters 3, 4 and 5. In the latter instance, we will make specific reference to emergence of public concern about toxic substances (dioxins, PCBs and environmental hormones) and in Chapters 7 and 8 we will look at specific issues including waste management as well as citizen referendums resulting in the cancellation of projects. There are two other influential changes that need to be taken into consideration here. First, we should note the 1997 adoption of EIA legislation in Japan (see Chapter 7). This is a major achievement in a country which has faced a long-term and bitterly contested battle over the development process and repeated failures in legislating for EIA (for a fuller discussion, see Barrett and Therivel 1991; Tsuru 1999:150–157). When evaluating the impact of this legislation, we need to take into consideration a complex interplay of factors including the general public’s dissatisfaction with the misuse of funds for major infrastructure projects, concerns regarding the continued degradation of the natural environment and the need to move toward a human-nature interaction that is harmonious rather than destructive, as signified by new strategies to protect Japan’s biodiversity (as discussed in Chapter 3). The second relates to Japan’s hosting of the third Conference of Parties to the Climate Change Convention in 1997. The period prior to, and just after, the Kyoto negotiations was marked by significant changes in civil society activity and also in the relationships between different arms of government. This success at Kyoto was taken forward in the 1998 Law for the Promotion of Measures to Prevent Global Warming (see Chapter 9). Quite clearly, despite the economic difficulties facing Japan, the environment remained an issue of key concern in the 1990s and this may have been an important factor explaining the upgrading of the Environment Agency to ministerial status in January 2001 (see Chapter 3). Reflections on Japanese environmentalism Perhaps owing to Japan’s tragic experience with pollution related diseases there is a strong anthropocentric ideology underpinning Japanese environmentalism (Huddle and Reich 1975; Ui 1992; Mervio 2000). The assumptions about relationships between people and nature in this ideological framework suggest that humans are higher than all else and nature is seen as a brute force (i.e. humans as victims of earthquakes, flooding, storms). It is rather close to the Promethean worldview (Dryzek 1997) under which the dominant entities recognized are markets, prices, energy, technology and people. All actors and agents are seen as motivated by material self-interest. Furthermore, this ideology may in part explain the proclivity


amongst the Japanese elite to favour grand-scale nature remaking schemes (McCormack 2001; Broadbent 2002a). This Promethean worldview, however, has been undermined somewhat in Japan by fears about nuclear power safety, dioxin and endocrine disrupters (Kingston 2001; Broadbent 2002a). This characterization, however, which is similar to the ToP perspective, may be too simplistic and is not supported by surveys of environmental values in the general population (see Chapter 6). As such when we discuss the evolution of environmentalism in Japan we may need to take a broader range of historical and, more recently, international influences into consideration. First, when discussing environmentalism in Japan, a number of commentators refer to the influences of preindustrial values systems and particularly those associated with the environmentally sustainable society found in Edo Japan in the Tokugawa Period (Totman 1989; Asquith and Kalland 1997; Ishikawa 2000). In many respects, this viewpoint has similarities with Green Romanticism in Europe and North America which tends to talk in terms of global limits, small-scale, communitarian practices, inner nature, unnatural practices and innovation (Dryzek 1997). It is the language of Deep Ecology, eco-feminism, green lifestyles (slow, small and simple), eco communalism and New Age eco-theology. In Japan, this form of environmentalism is increasingly in evidence linked to left politics and feminism (Danaher 2003) but also connected with the emergence of the new slow life movement and the recent tendency to idealize rural traditions as uncontaminated from Western, industrial or capitalist influences (Mervio 2000; Thomas 2001). Nowhere is this better illustrated than with the emergence of the Satoyama movement, which potentially represents a form of cultural indoctrination whereby Japan’s rural landscapes are given elevated stature and deemed suitable for preservation (Takeuchi et al. 2002). Through Satoyama, special value is placed on natural environmental objects (commodified nature) that fall within a specific set of cultural aesthetic boundaries associated with the notion of Japanese identity (Mervio 2000; Thomas 2001). Second, commentators describe how the forces of modernization altered Japanese perspectives on nature and the environment (Thomas 2001), with some viewing the dominant forms of environmentalism as stemming from those directly affected by environmental problems, including pre-war pollution incidents at copper mines in Ashio and Besshi and re-emerging in the post-war incidents in places like Minamata, Yokkaichi and Niigata (Iijima 1992; Tsuru 1999). The term used in Japanese to describe these pollution incidents is kougai (public nuisance), in line with the anthropocentric focus mentioned above. It was only in the 1970s that a shift occurred and the broader term kankyoo (environment) was adopted (Tsuru 1999:124–125) making way for the broader consideration of amenity issues such as landscape (Horikawa 2001). Third, in the 1980s and 1990s, we also witness new forms of environmentalism in Japan associated with the emergence of a politically mobilized, new middle class with post-materialistic values (see Chapters 5 and 6 of this volume; Inglehart 1982, 1990, 1997). However, this has not translated, as yet, into genuine green political mobilization independent of traditional societal cleavages as found elsewhere in the appearance of Green parties (Vosse 2000; Schreurs 2002). As we


will show in Chapter 6, there has been a gradual increase in pro-environmental values in the 1990s, perhaps influenced by the notions of sustainable development espoused at the Rio Earth Summit and we can conclude that this trend is implicit in the development of Japan as an ecologically modernized society (Cohen 2000). The discourse patterns have also begun to shift with new terms being used more extensively, such as environmental load, zero emissions, environmentally sound material cycle, recirculatory society and new energy (wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, waste to energy). The existence of these divergent ideological perspectives implies a significant substantive deepening in the environmental discourse in Japan in recent years, associated with the materialization of more pluralistic policy processes from around 1997, with the impact of long-term economic decline, societal change and institutional reform, as well as with the gradual influence of globalization on values in Japan’s citizenry, and the need to respond to the increasingly complex nature of environmental problems. Conclusions In discussing the contemporary forms of environmentalism in Japan, we have looked briefly at the historical influences and cultural explanations of the Japanese relationship to nature, the impact of major pollution problems and the resulting very strong anthropocentric focus of many of the environmental measures, as well as the emergence of new value systems (post-materialist). Japanese experience of overcoming the pollution debacle illustrates the potential for others to follow the same path that initially placed emphasis on efficiency and economy over the environment but that was then transformed as environmental concerns were integrated into the economic sphere. Our review of the post-war environmental discourses within the framework of the changing political opportunity structures is a prelude to the more in-depth analysis in the following chapters that will explore the conflux of institutions and interests at the national and local levels (Chapters 3 and 4), political actors (Chapter 5), values systems (Chapter 6) and eco-material conditions (Chapters 7, 8 and 9) that have brought about transformations in the patterns of environmental politics and policies witnessed in the 1990s and early twenty-first century. A central conclusion from this chapter is that the surfacing of vibrant and diverse environmental discourses in Japan may in a large part be associated with new political opportunity structures that are comparatively more open to civil society participation (see Chapter 5), supported by a shift toward the use of proactive environmental policy measures (e.g. EIA as discussed in Chapter 7) and the development of new measures to deal with complex environmental issues like waste and energy (Chapter 8). Notes 1 Through loans, subsidies and sponsored research the government extends support to industry, which in turn is viewed as a national treasure, producing the lifeblood of the nation.


2 Hidefumi Imura (1997) stated that Japan was initially a pioneer with respect to the development of new innovative environmental policy tools. However, he expressed concern that in the 1980s the alliance of ‘environmental modernizers’ was weakened by the dual impacts of low energy and raw material prices during the bubble economy. 3 This is in stark contrast to the position Japan took before 1988, where there was minimal involvement with international environmental action.

Part 2 Policies, actors and institutions

26

3 Building a national environmental regime Brendan F.D.Barrett

The ecological modernization theory has identified two options for strategies to overcome the deficiencies of the traditional bureaucratic state in environmental policymaking…First, a transformation of state environmental policy is necessary: from curative and reactive to preventative, from exclusive to participatory, from centralized to decentralized wherever possible…The second, related, option includes a transfer of responsibilities, incentives and tasks from the state to the market. (Mol 1995:46–47) The core scholarship on ecological modernization deals with changes in institutions and social practices, rather than on physical improvements in the environment or in the patterns of natural resource consumption (Mol and Sonnenfeld 2000). One central transformation is that of the role of the nation-state. Some commentators describe a process of political modernization (reinventing government) taking place in a number of states which has resulted in the emergence of more consensual governance styles, characterized by a shift away from national top-down commandand-control environmental regulation with many functions (regulatory, managerial, corporate and mediating) relocated from state to non-state actors (Jänicke and Weidner 1995; Mol and Buttel 2002:3). This migration of powers, by default or by design, is compounded by the impact of emergent supranational institutions (with the European Commission being the best example) and the forces of globalization working to undermine the role of the nation-state in environmental reform (Mol and Sonnenfeld 2000:7; Mol 2001b). The environmental state came under pressure in many industrialized countries in the 1980s, driven by a clear ideological bent in favour of deregulation and privatization (Mol and Buttel 2002: 3), in part explaining why the development of environmental legislation and regulation in Japan practically stalled in the 1980s, with only four new laws. This situation was reversed in the 1990s as more progressive modes of environmental governance were pursued across the globe, and in Japan we witness a resurgence of environmental legislative activity with 18 new laws in the period 1990 to 1999 (OECD 2002:56–57).

28 BRENDAN F.D.BARRETT

Within the framework of ecological modernization, the state is viewed as working with, rather than directing, these new modes of governance in order to steer society towards a more sustainable future while at the same time adopting new instruments such as market incentives that push target groups toward eco-efficient practices (Revell 2003). The state has shifted from the role of protector of common interests or, perhaps more pointedly, the economic imperative, to become the facilitator between different interests (Dryzek et al 2003:164; Schaede and Grimes 2003:7). These changes have been linked to the spread of sub-politics whereby pressure builds within different segments of society to tackle environmental problems outside of the framework of political parties and bureaucracies, which are themselves embroiled in a legitimation crisis (Beck 1992). The 1990s legitimation crisis within the Japanese developmental state has been extensively documented elsewhere (Kingston 2001; Hirata 2002:82–96; Neary 2002:119–121) and we will return to this topic in Chapter 5, but it is important to highlight that increasing public distrust of politicians, bureaucrats and corporations during this period, combined with values shifts in society (Chapter 6), may have been crucial is creating the preconditions for an opening up of Japanese governance. The resulting shift in approach in Japan to environmental governance created some new opportunities for active inclusion of environmentalists within some policy-making forums (Chapters 4 and 5). This is a positive step forward1 and the literature suggests, which we reinforce in this volume, that Japan’s policymakers have ‘broadly adopted an ecological modernization position’ (Murphy 2000:3). The reasoning behind this general perception is threefold. First, the administration has for decades adopted the widespread use of agreements with industry to pursue environmental best practice (Sugiyama and Imura 1999). Second, environmental management in Japan, in the post-war period, has effectively functioned as a cooperative environmental management regime (Meadowcroft 1999) shared by central and local government (OECD 1994) and now expanding to include broader civil society participation (as will be discussed in Chapter 4). Third, since modernization began during the Meiji Restoration the underlying approach has depended upon cooperative partnership between industry and government in policy formation (Wallace 1995). Government agencies and industry have sought to maintain good relationships and open dialogues on environmental policy issues.2 Environmental objectives can therefore be achieved at lowest cost (compared to other countries) via flexible processes of recommendation by government and voluntary action by industry, which in turn encourages innovation. In this chapter, we will use the term environmental regime to refer to the system or style of national government that has been put in place to deal with environmental externalities found in Japan. We will include within this definition the legislative, regulatory and policy responses, as well as the approach to enforcement and compliance and we will describe some of the key changes from 1990 onwards. The national environmental regime should be understood as the system for control and management of these externalities, which over time turns into the established or institutionalized way of doing things. Regimes serve various functions including organizing issue areas, development of approaches to deal with uncertainty, reducing

BUILDING A NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL REGIME 29

transaction costs, facilitating inter-group negotiations and supporting collective enforcement (Wong 2001). A regime is essentially a social institution shaped by norms, rules, knowledge and values supported by networks and communities (epistemic groups). From the late 1980s onwards, the environmental regime in Japan has increasingly linked into an trans-national system of environmental governance (Tsuru 1999:193–223; Wong 2001; Hotta 2004) and can only bring about change on the ground through active participation of the local government (see Chapter 4). We will begin our discussion with an examination of findings of the OECD 1994 and 2002 environmental performance reviews to provide context for an evaluation of strengths and weaknesses of contemporary policy and institutions. We will then move on to examine the changing role of the Ministry of the Environment, before discussing the activities of other bodies within government. Coping with environmental change in Japan Japan has one of the most comprehensive and effective environmental monitoring systems in the world. The development of the system began in the early 1970s and involves a network of monitoring facilities throughout the country operated by national and local government. The information collected is presented in an annual state of the environment report referred to as the White Paper on the Environment and published by the Ministry of the Environment. A brief review of these materials reveals a number of important issues concerning the quality of the environment in Japan:3 • Considerable progress has been made with respect to key air pollutants (SOx and CO) compared to the levels encountered in the 1960s and 1970s.4 However, control of nitrogen dioxide and suspended particulate matter levels in urban areas has proven more difficult and environmental standards are not always being met in these areas. Hence in 2001, the Automobile NOx Law was amended to try to tackle this problem. • Japan’s carbon dioxide emissions are below the OECD average. However, the absolute CO2 emissions are still high (emission rates for 2000 reached an all-time high of 2.55 metric tons per capita).5 • Trans-boundary pollution from neighbouring countries is a growing concern with acid rain levels now similar to those found in Europe. Although research is still on-going, it is predicted that negative environmental impacts from acid rain will become apparent in Japan in the near future. • There is nearly 100 per cent compliance with respect to the control of heavy metals and toxic substance concentrations in water bodies.6 However, the control of organic pollutants has proven more difficult (i.e. nearly 80 per cent compliance in 2000) with eutrophication occurring in inland water areas and bays (Tokyo, Ise and the Seto Inland Sea) around Japan. • Development activity around the inland and coastal waters poses a threat to the natural environment in these areas. Roughly 30 per cent of the lakeshores and 56 per cent of the marine coastline have been developed or altered.


• The main methods of waste disposal in Japan are landfill and incineration. While recycling rates for some materials are high, further efforts are required in order to reduce waste generation. Alternatives to incineration need to be explored especially in the context of growing concerns about dioxin emissions from inadequate incinerator facilities. Regulation of hazardous industrial waste is another area that needs to be improved. • There is growing public concern about the potential impact of endocrine disrupting chemicals (environmental hormones) and an urgent need for more scientific research.7 About 50,000 types of chemical are currently produced and circulating in Japan of varying toxicities (including carcinogens). A pollutant release and transfer register was introduced in 2002 to try to cope with this problem. • Although 67 per cent of Japan is forested, natural vegetation cover accounts for only 18 per cent of the country (mainly in Hokkaido) and is continuing to decline. Moreover, the most recent version of the Red Data Book shows that 7 per cent of mammals, 8 per cent of birds, 22 per cent of amphibians and 11 per cent of freshwater/brackish water fish are threatened with extinction. In order to respond to this problem, the Government of Japan issued a new National Strategy for Biological Diversity Conservation in March 2002. OECD’s evaluation The OECD’s environmental performance reviews are noted for their objectivity. They are excellent benchmarking documents and the conclusions they draw are very useful indicators of the future improvements that may be necessary in order to reach internationally acceptable levels of performance (OECD 1994, 2002). A comparison of the findings of the 1994 and 2002 OECD recommendations for Japan is presented in Table 3.1. Its achievements in decoupling the levels of economic activity and energy use from air pollution emissions, and willingness to recognize the increasing importance of international environmental cooperation in recent years were congratulated in the 1994 OECD review. The same report, however, was critical in a number of areas but particularly with respect to nature conservation, which was described as being ‘at a cross-roads as regards its potential to either achieve significant gains…or to experience irreversible losses of natural resources’. The 1994 OECD’s recommendations focused on the need for greater integration of environmental and other policy areas, the adoption of ecosystem management and pollution prevention rather than mere control, the use of eco nomic instruments, and the setting of targets for nature conservation. The Japanese government responded to these comments within the Environment Basic Plan of December 1994 which included proposals for a mandatory environmental assessment system, more widespread use of economic instruments and the development of systematic measures to conserve outstanding natural features. A key theme found in both OECD reviews is the importance of policy integration. The 2002 report has three chapters dealing with this topic and argues that Japan has achieved a major decoupling of environmental deterioration from economic growth


during the last two decades in terms of SOx, NOx, fertilizers and pesticides. However, in other areas, performance has been less positive, particularly with regard to CO2 trends, energy use and traffic. Concerns are also expressed on weak links between environmental and physical planning as well as on the general failure to systematically apply Strategic Environmental Assessment to policies, plans and programmes. The report is critical of the limited use of market-based instruments such as fees, charges, taxes, tradeable permits and deposit refund programmes. Moreover, the expert reviewers argue that two major problems yet to be tackled in a comprehensive manner are the granting of financial assistance to some producers/ consumers and the sectoral subsidies that undermine both environmental effectiveness and economic efficiencies. Both reviews have been instrumental in stimulating changes in the Japanese approach to environmental governance and have been matched by internal pressures for change. See Table 3.2 for a list of laws passed in the period 1990 to 2003.

From Japan Environment Agency to Ministry of the Environment Most commentaries on national environmental policy-making tend to remark on the relative status, successes and weaknesses of the former Japan Environment Agency (upgraded to the Ministry of the Environment in January 2001) in relation to other major development oriented ministries (Huddle and Reich 1975; Gresser et al. 1981; Barrett and Therivel 1991; Wong 2001). The Japan Environment Agency was mandated to promote policies for pollution control, nature conservation and other environmental issues. It was noticeably smaller than most other ministries both in financial and human resource terms.8 The OECD estimated that the Agency’s 900 or so staff represented about 0.1 per cent of all government employees (OECD 1994), growing to 1,230 after reorganization or 0.2 per cent (OECD 2002). It is very easy to fall into the false assumption that the Japan Environment Agency was the focal point of Japan’s environmental management system throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In reality, the Agency was severely constrained by the fact the policy proposals it made were closely vetted by other ministries and implemented by local government. Rather, it may have been more appropriate to consider the Agency as a coordinating and information collection/dissemination body. During the first two decades of existence, the Agency struggled to influence national policy-making dominated by the pro-development ministries (Van Wolferen 1989; Barrett and Therivel 1991). In the late 1990s, perhaps supported by increased public awareness of pressing global environmental problems, the status of the Japan Environment Agency was greatly enhanced. Moreover, as explained in Chapter 2, key political leaders and the environmental administration effectively utilized the need to respond to global problems as a means to further development of national environmental policy approaches. Following the reform, the MoE became exclusively responsible for five areas. These are: government-wide environmental policy (a coordinating function); environment basic planning at the national level and regional pollution control programming; waste measures (including hazardous waste import/export regulation);


Table 3.1 Comparison of OECD reviews of Japan’s environmental performance


pollution regulation and monitoring; and conservation of nature and biodiversity. The only functions transferred to the MoE were those related to waste, previously with the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Therefore from functional, budgetary and manpower perspectives, the gains for the Ministry were marginal. Moreover, some officials lamented at the loss of agency status and the benefits that accrued from being part of the Prime Minister’s Office (Wong 2001:54). The main direct benefits are that ministerial status puts the MoE on equal footing with some of its strongest competitors within the government system such as the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). This enhancement in status has been furthered by the growing political recognition of the MoE’s importance.9 Supported by increased concerns in many quarters with regards to the global and domestic environment, buoyed and challenged by criticisms and compliments from overseas and from the OECD in particular, the Ministry made progress in a number of issue-based areas.10 Further, a large part in the success of the environmental administration in the 1990s was the fact that negotiating capabilities of the environmental officials seemed to reach a greater level of sophistication as the upper echelons became dominated by personnel who had worked their way up through the


Table 3.2 Major environmental legislation, 1990–2003


ranks (see Yong 2001:54 for a discussion on how the JEA was colonized by other ministries when it was first established). The recent successes also reflect the efforts made by the environmental administration in Japan to create more extensive links within different layers of society. To begin with, the MoE is supported in its work by a number of research entities and advisory councils. These include the National Institute for Environmental Studies, which was designated as an independent administrative entity (semiprivatized) under reform programmes, providing it with some distance from the MoE but at the same time functioning as a think tank addressing concerns relevant to a broader constituency. Other affiliated institutions are far more specialized but have played equally important functions in helping the MoE to interact with Japanese society and these include the National Institute for Minamata Disease, the National Environmental Training Institute, the Japan Environment Corporation (providing funds and technical support to local governments and corporations for projects such as the construction of zero-emissions industrial areas and industrial waste treatment facilities) and the Pollution Related Health Damage Compensation and Prevention Association. The MoE also sees great importance in establishing links with the NGO community as a means to win hearts and minds, especially when seeking to influence national debates on key issues (Wong 2001:56). In 1996, for instance, the Global Environmental Information Centre (also referred to as the Global Environment Partnership Plaza, linked to the nearby Environment Partnership Office) was established at the United Nations University in Tokyo as a venue to promote information dissemination and exchange between the NGO community and corporations, and a network of local information centres throughout Japan and internationally. In order to improve access to research on global environmental issues, bearing in mind the key role that good information can play in winning policy debates, the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies was established in 1998. Other very issue-specific centres have also be created recently including a new Biodiversity Centre of Japan, established in Yamanashi Prefecture in 1998 (three years after the completion of the National Biodiversity Strategy for Japan) and the Japan Centre for Climate Change Actions, established in 1999, pursuant to the Law Concerning the Promotion of the Measures to Cope with Global Warming. All of the above represent part of an approach to institutional innovation, resource capture and capacity building, as well as a response to global obligations. Each initiative reflects the fact that the MoE cannot respond to new demands by increasing its internal staffing and these entities bring with them former MoE staff but also attract representatives from environmental NGOs, local government and business. They have a powerful networking and intermediary function between the MoE and the rest of Japanese society. This approach may be indicative of the overall national bureaucracy’s attitude to the reform programmes throughout the 1990s designed to bring about smaller, efficient, transparent and more effective democratically controlled government (Neary 2002:123). Changes have also affected the role of various advisory councils (shingikai) around the MoE. Traditionally since the 1970s, there have been two advisory committees


associated with the national environmental administration—the Central Council for Environmental Pollution Control (CCEPC) and the Nature Conservation Council (NCC). The Director-General of the Agency was required to consult with these bodies when developing basic policies. This system was reformed in January 1994 when the Central Environment Council (CEC) was established in accordance with the 1993 Environment Basic Act but also in an attempt to create greater transparency around the environmental policy-making process (OECD 1994). Members of the Council are appointed by the Prime Minister and include academics and other knowledgeable persons. The Council deals with requests from the Prime Minister, other cabinet ministers and the Director-General of the MoE on topics related to environmental sustainability. According to Ren (2000:83), the CEC works through a system of subcommittees and provides a venue for policy consultations and negotiations, with some of its meetings open to the public, and with extensive public hearings taking place on the policy proposals that emerge. This level of transparency is uncommon within the shingikai system, even for the other advisory councils of the MoE. One of the biggest problems for the MoE is that, owing to its limited resources and size, its presence outside of Tokyo is nominal compared to other ministries with strong regional representation such as METI. Only the Nature Conservation Bureau has regional offices (11 in total) and these are located in national parks. Hence, the MoE relies extensively on support from ministry-affiliated entities, supervised NGOs and the local government. They all have different functions, but the latter is by far the most significant with respect to the actual implementation of environmental policy (as will be discussed in Chapter 4). There are around 87,000 personnel in prefectural and municipal government working in environmental management, with 84 per cent engaged in waste management, 10 per cent in pollution control and 6 per cent in nature conservation (OECD 2002: 55). This fact alone explains why the MoE was keen to retain control of local government activities and opposed the decentralization reforms in the 1990s (Barrett 2000). Environmental powers throughout government The national environmental regime in Japan is dispersed throughout several jealously guarded ministerial jurisdictions over water supply, industrial waste management, recycling, forestry, fisheries conservation, agrochemical control, energy conservation, environmental technology development, supervision of commercial nuclear plants, traffic pollution control, aircraft noise pollution control, urban planning, development of public works including sewerage, urban parks, roads and dams, river preservation and flood control (Barrett and Therivel 1991; Wong 2001; OECD 2002). The list is extensive and clearly the responsible ministries exert considerable influence over the direction of Japan’s environmental policy and have significant resources at their disposal to achieve their goals. The main ministries with environment related responsibilities are the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MLIT).


These ministries dwarf the MoE11 which is restricted to an advisory role with respect to the control of chemicals, industrial waste control and recycling, factory location control, radioactive substances monitoring, climate change and other global environmental issues, as well as the conservation of forests, rivers, lakes and coastal areas (Wong 2001:54). It is important to recognize that within many of these ministries considerable emphasis is placed on pro-environmental policies.12 The former Ministry of Construction (now MLIT), for instance, underwent something of a transformation in the late 1990s introducing new measures to try to improve the quality of the environment through its town planning functions. The consensus view of many commentators on Japan, however, is that the policy-making process still appears to be dominated by a pro-development agenda (Kerr 2001; Kingston 2001; McCormack 2001). Within the overall expenditure of the national environmental regime, the MoE spends around 9 per cent of the total budget. In 2003, this amounted to Yen 262 billion (or US$2.4 billion) from a national environmental budget of around Yen 2.7 trillion (US$25.8 billion). This represents a major increase for the MoE, effectively tripling the budget compared to that of the Japan Environment Agency in 1999 (roughly Yen 86 billion) and is mainly accounted for by the funds allocated for the subsidy system for waste incineration under the MoE’s new responsibilities. In comparison, MLIT in 2003 had a total budget of around Yen 6.7 trillion (US$63 billion), which included an environmental component of Yen 1.3 trillion (US$12.7 billion). METI’s 2003 environmental budget of Yen 320 billion exceeds the total budget of the MoE (MoE 2003c); this is mainly due to the transfer of responsibilities from the previous Science and Technology Agency. Inter-ministerial conflict is commonplace and some ministries fared better than others in the administrative reorganization. For instance, METI benefited significantly from the incorporation of parts of the Economic Planning and Science and Technology agencies (Elder 2003). The Ministry has long been recognized as a guiding force behind Japan’s industrial and high-technology policies (Okimoto 1989; Nester 1991; Sigurdson and Anderson 1991) but it has been argued that in the 1990s the Ministry was losing its relevance (Zinsmeister 1993). However, the situation appeared to turn around in the late 1990s, as the Ministry began to shift emphasis to promote broader economic reforms that in turn require greater cooperation with other ministries (Elder 2003:161). The Ministry has always viewed environmental issues as energy issues (Wong 2001:58). However from the late 1990s onwards, METI began to target key environmental areas for industrial promotion including eco-materials, low-pollution (zero emissions) manufacturing, recycling, eco-friendly urban construction materials, building ventilation systems, new transportation systems, refuse derived fuels, clean energy vehicles and solar power. Elder (2003) presents four political reasons for METI’s focus on these environment related industries, which include the desire to appear progressive and green, the possibility of obtaining additional funding for research and industrial promotion, the possibility that such funds would be viewed by observers outside Japan as part of environmental policy (heading off possible trade frictions) and the possibility that the mandated recycling programmes would develop into a WTO-legal non-tariff barrier. For instance, the July 2003 interim report from


the METI Industrial Structure Council dealing with climate change states: ‘Japan needs to demonstrate its diplomatic strategy in the field of global environmental issues as a platform for creation a new national and diplomatic image of Japan’ (METI 2003:68). Energy is a sector where METI exerts considerable oversight, packaged as part of Japan’s response to climate change and linked to the pursuit of new and renewable energy sources (see Chapter 8). Within its organizational structure, METI maintains the Industrial Science, Technology Policy and Environment Bureau. It also includes a number of agencies with key environmental functions including the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency. Furthermore, the Ministry maintains a network of regional bureaus that function as its ‘eyes and ears’. Through a process of continuity and change, which includes internal reorganization and refocusing of the policy direction, METI has been able to reassert its authority over a very significant slice of national environmental policy-making and is disseminating messages to wider society that reflect many of the tenets of ecological modernization. This is linked to the reliance on key environmental advisory councils/committees, many of which include the same members as the MOE’s Central Environment Council, including Professor Akio Morishima, the head of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies. This sharing of a rather small group (perhaps in the hundreds) of influential thinkers in Japan who are operating at the national level to shape environmental policy implies that significant new areas of inter-ministerial collaboration are developing but as yet through rather narrow discourse coalitions. These collaborative efforts gained further impetus through the strengthening of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Office in the recent round of administrative reform (Neary 2002). In instances where a policy action concerns two or more ministries, the Cabinet Office takes a coordinating role (OECD 1994:42). MLIT is another government body with very significant powers related to the actual implementation of environmental conservation measures. As a mega-ministry (bringing together the previous ministries for construction and transportation) MLIT addresses a wide range of environmental issues including nature and ecosystem conservation/rehabilitation, marine pollution, airport noise, management of the impacts of road and other construction projects, and recycling of construction byproducts, as well as the development and management of environmentally friendly housing and infrastructure. MLIT is a member of the family of government bodies responsible for the promotion of the recirculatory society (junkangatta shakai) and is mainly dealing with the recycling of construction wastes (which represent 20 per cent of all industrial waste) and car recycling. The Ministry is also implementing numerous measures related to global warming including efforts to reduce the CO2 generated from the transportation sector by 13 million tons in 2010 (i.e. from a predicted 81 million to 68 million—the 1995 level). This would involve the promotion of low emission vehicles, a modal shift and road improvements to increase traffic speeds. Measures are also proposed to reduce the emissions from the residential/commercial sector by 27 million tons in 2010. With respect to ecological modernization, MLIT has on occasion introduced strict regulations that work to


promote innovation and industrial transformation. For instance, by amending the exhaust emission standards for cars, trucks and buses in September 2003 (which will go into effect in 2005), MLIT has introduced the most stringent regulations in the world. The new standards drastically lower exhaust emission limits. For cars, both nitrogen oxide (NOx) and hydrocarbon (HC) emissions limits are reduced by 55 per cent from previous levels, while, for heavyweight vehicles such as trucks and buses, particulate matter limits are reduced by 85 per cent, NOx by 40 per cent and HC emissions by 80 per cent.13 This kind of stringent regulation is important in that it offers first mover advantages to domestic producers (Cohen 1997). MLIT retains control of most of the national planning functions as well as land use and transportation issues in the urban areas and as such it would be impossible for the MoE to attain many of its goals without MLIT collaboration. As the main body responsible for the development of Japan’s infrastructure, the Ministry has been at the centre of concerns related to the excessive expenditure on public works projects. In an attempt to revitalize the economy, national expenditure of public works peaked twice in the 1990s at Yen 15.2 trillion (US$141 billion) in 1993 and at Yen 14.9 trillion in 1998. In between these peaks, public investments on infrastructure fell to Yen 10.5 trillion in 1996 and then to Yen 9.4 trillion in 2001. In its defence, MLIT’s basic argument is that public works expenditure is not the main cause for the current fiscal deficit in Japan and that the impact of social security increases and declining tax revenues need also to be taken into consideration (MLIT 2002).14 The on-going debate on public works expenditure in Japan continues to place pressure on MLIT to reconsider the basic approach to development and perhaps is indicative of a search for a more sustainable model (see Chapter 7). Overseas manifestation of Japanese environmental policy Over the past decade, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) has played a key role, working alongside other government bodies, in presenting Japan’s environmental activities in a positive light to the international community, which some commentators read as an attempt to utilize a national commitment to international environmental protection as a diplomatic instrument of power (Wong 2001:60). A unique and important situation arose in the late 1980s when external demands for global environmental action were matched with the support from domestic actors (politicians, civil society, business leaders) associated with the desire to attain some form of global environmental leadership (as mentioned in Chapter 2). Nevertheless, some commentators state that there is a propensity for Japan to pay ‘lip service to international concerns by joining international conventions and other arrangements that require a departure from past domestic practices, then simply failing to implement newly enacted national laws or to propagandize the new regime’ (Feinerman and Fujikura 1998:253). It is argued that Japan tends to adopt an industrial policy regulatory approach that works well for tackling the implementation of some international treaty goals such as ozone protection but performs poorly in areas such as CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) or with respect


to the compliance conditions of the London Convention on Ocean Dumping. Perhaps reflecting upon the changes taking place in Japan in the late 1990s, international environmental lawyers remark that: Japan is facing the need to change traditional regulatory approaches. Japan may resort to a more active use of law and legal means to implement international and national environmental policy objectives more effectively, calling for more citizen participation and greater involvement of local government. (Feinerman and Fujikura 1998:290) MoFA has played a key role in helping to project an image of Japan realigning its regulatory approach to one better designed to tackle national and global environmental problems. Two main measures have been implemented for this purpose. The first is through the application of Official Development Assistance (ODA) and the second relates to the skilful negotiation of Japan’s position in several multilateral environmental agreements. The 2002 White Paper on ODA issued by MoFA presents an overview of some of the main issues and the response measures from Japan (MoFA 2003). The first point to note is that, almost in an identical pattern to general domestic public expenditure on major infrastructure projects, Japan’s ODA peaked twice in the 1990s. The first time was in 1995 when it reached US$14.4 billion, well above any other major industrialized country. The second time was in 1999 when it climbed to US$15.3 billion. In the intervening periods the ODA declined to nearer US$9 billion, and in 2001 the United States’ ODA overtook that of Japan for the first time since 1990. These fluctuations may be indicative of a general degree of uncertainty on the future direction of Japanese ODA and reflect growing concerns for more strategically targeted, participatory, transparent, efficient and visible aid (Hirata 2002). From a strategic perspective, Japan is focusing on supporting economic growth in Asia in order to reduce poverty and increase human security, in line with the Millennium Development Goals. Within this framework, Japan announced the Environmental Conservation Initiative for Sustainable Development in August 2002 and the Clean Water for People Initiative at the WSSD in September 2002. Greater efforts are being made to increase collaboration between ODA related ministries and transparency through the Council of Overseas Economic Cooperation Related Ministers, as well as to increase the autonomy of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) through reforms from October 2003 onwards. Furthermore, efforts have been made to more fully involve civil society in the ODA process and to build new modes of NGO-MoFA cooperation (Hirata 2002). Specific examples include the launch of regular NGO-MoFA consultations in 2002 and the creation of a Council on Comprehensive ODA Strategy in June of that year with participation from NGOs, academics and business representatives. Another important reform includes the April 2002 announcement from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) of new guidelines for the confirmation of environmental and social considerations of international financial operations and overseas economic


cooperation.15 The guidelines require that the project implementing agency should solicit stakeholders’ participation in the project from the planning stage onwards. A checklist has been developed by JBIC that includes social considerations pertaining to resettlement, indigenous people and gender. Furthermore, the provisions for information disclosure have been strengthened and JBIC is now required to make public such items as the category classification of the project prior to loan approval. Taken together, these innovations represent an initial and concerted effort to modernize Japan’s ODA programmes. They are a reaction to considerable problems encountered with ODA in the past including the case of pesticide aid to Cambodia, as well as examples of mishandled dam construction projects such as the Narmada Dam (India) as highlighted by Hirata (2002:102–113) and Kotopanjang Dam (Indonesia) (Japan Times, 14 August 2003). The changes in policy are indicative of a higher degree of reflexivity in Japan with respect to overseas aid whereby NGOs (in Japan and overseas) and politicians have been able (or willing to try) to influence governmental decisions on major development projects in order to protect the environment. The second area where MoFA has played a key role has been in support of other government ministries, mainly the MoE, in multilateral environmental negotiations, particularly those related to climate change. Moreover, Japan’s participation in the WSSD was at the highest level, with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi supported by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Yoriko Kawaguchi and the Minister of the Environment Hiroshi Ohki. The ‘Koizumi Initiative’ launched at the Summit included measures on trade, energy, agriculture, ODA, Africa, climate change, forestry, biological diversity and water. Some of these measures had been around for a while (the Aichi Expo for example) while others were new and could prove very significant (the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development from 2005 to 2015). Furthermore, 2002 was a busy year for Japan’s diplomatic arm with the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in June, and also ratification of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. Following on from this, Japan also ratified the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety in November 2003 and at the Tenth Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee expressed an interest in ratifying the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade. All of the above are indicative of the Japanese government taking a more proactive stance in international negotiations. We will return to this topic with specific reference to climate change in Chapter 9. The greening of Japanese politics The 1990s was a period of political turbulence in Japan which was characterized by the fragmentation of parties and factions as well as the emergence of new opposition parties, coalition governments and junior politicians ( seisaku shinjinrui ) with policy expertise willing to challenge the bureaucrats (Neary 2002; Shiozaki 2002). In 1993, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost its majority in Parliament and has since had


to rely on its alliance with the New Komeito (NK) in order to pass legislation. The Democratic Party (DPJ) has emerged as the main opposition party winning 177 seats in the November 2003 Lower House Election compared with the LDP’s 237 seats. Most of this growth, however, was at the expense of the other opposition parties—the Japan Communist Party (JCP) and the Socialist Party of Japan. The DPJ contrasts sharply with the LDP: It is has a centre-left platform: ‘popular sovereignty’, ‘respect for fundamental human rights and pacifism,’ free market principles should ‘permeate economic life,’ but individuals should be guaranteed social security and safety, while government should become more transparent and less centralized. (Neary 2002:104) While the LDP in the past has relied on its conservative stance promoting stability and pork barrel politics, the DPJ is strongly opposed to the over-reliance on major public works and favours radical restructuring of the public sector (Sasaki 2002). Moreover, the LDP maintains strong ties with the bureaucracy while the DPJ emphasizes its strong anti-bureaucratic stance (Sasaki 2002). The DPJ is much clearer on its environmental policy stance than the LDP, supporting the possible incorporation of environmental rights in the constitution, the enactment of a basic law on global environmental preservation, and further engagement of Japan in environment related diplomacy. Both parties seek to appeal to the ‘free floating’ voters through catch-all politics while maintaining their support base (rural, older voters and the construction sector for the LDP and urban, young and public sector unions for the DPJ). Consequently, some commentators believe that there has been something of a blurring of their appeal with the LDP being criticized as standing for nothing and the DPJ standing for everything (Kent Weaver 2002). Efforts by the politicians to exert greater control over the bureaucracy, rather that merely rubber-stamping legislation, also increased in the 1990s. The younger parliamentarians seem more willing to take the policy initiative, although their participation in the policy process is still somewhat limited and ad hoc, with the best documented example being the passage of legislation in 1998 for revitalization of the financial system, where junior LDP politicians amended proposals originally drawn up by the Ministry of Finance (Curtis 2002; Shiozaki 2002). The other development highlighted by some politicians in Japan is the use of private member bills (accounting for around 10 per cent of legislative activity), and some recent examples, such as the 2001 bill on stock-market reform, illustrate how it is possible for individual Diet members to develop legislation in areas normally covered by government sponsored bills (Nemoto 2002). While acknowledging the significance of all of these changes and the reforms in the 1990s, some argue that: At the turn of the century, the political world looks little changed. The LDP is still in power, the government is spending vast sums on public works and a


geriatric elite seems more concerned about propping up a sclerotic system than in achieving meaningful reform. (Kingston 2001:35) This ‘value persistence’ is an underlying factor influencing the behaviour of Japanese political parties, regardless of their ideological hue (Peng-Er 1999). As a consequence, unlike in many European countries, it has proven almost impossible in Japan to establish a national Green party. Vosse (2000:274–282) explains that for many years setting up a political party never seemed like a viable option for the environmental movement in Japan mainly for structural reasons (high costs associated with election campaigns, lack of leadership in the green movement, etc.). Others provide some additional insights as to why a Green party did not emerge, arguing that the electoral system based on multi-member constituencies employing a single transferable vote favours candidates with a high level of recognition and does not foster ideological debate amongst parties (Schreurs 2002:25). New parties, when they do emerge, are merely off-shoots from existing parties and are not formed in response to ideological concerns. It may also be possible that the creation of a Green party is not considered a worthwhile endeavour by social movements who recognize the general lack of trust within Japanese society for the established parties and elected politicians and the general frustration at the lack of party alternation, due to perennial LDP rule (Broadbent 2002a). For instance, a 1998 survey by the Asahi Shimbun revealed that 75 per cent of respondents consider most politicians to be dishonest (compares with 30 per cent in the United States) (Yoshida 2002). Only when domestic or international pressures threaten electoral or economic loss to the pro-growth coalition (LDP, economic bureaucracies and big business) does the government make major changes in environmental policy. For instance, control of the powerful House of Representatives (Shugiin) by the opposition parties allowed Japan Environment Agency proposals to shape the 1993 Environment Basic Law (Broadbent 2002a). While lacking a national Green party, there has been some progress in the greening of politics at the local level from the 1980s onwards through the Network Movement (NET), formed in 1987 and supported by the Seikatsu Club, an association of 22 consumer cooperatives active in 15 prefectures of Japan, with 250,000 members, most of whom are women (Peng-Er 1999). The Seikatsu Club is extensively involved in environment related activities including recent campaigns against genetically modified foods and environmental hormones.16 The club uses NET as a means to participate in and reform local politics and as of 2001 there are 141 NET representatives in local assemblies, up from 123 in 1996 (36 in different local governments in Kanagawa Prefecture alone). According to Peng-Er, NET displays many of the characteristics of the European Green parties such as egalitarian organization, female leadership, emphasis on green issues, clean politics and the adoption of policies reflecting NET’s constituency rather than vote maximizing potential (Peng-Er 1999:122). While recognizing that NET has many limitations it is argued that the party has made a considerable contribution through: ‘The enhancement of women’s participation in politics, offering a Green option to


voters, the injection of New Politics issues in policy formulation, and the formation of Red-Green ruling coalitions in local government’ (Peng-Er 1999:155). The party has enlivened local politics by increasing choice and competition for votes in the metropolitan areas and through the introduction of new issues to the political agenda such as Local Agenda 21, recycling, water safety and the use of environmentally friendly products (see Chapter 4). From 1998 onwards there has been another Green movement at the local level in Japan under the name Niji to Midori (Rainbow and Green Party).17 With around 130 representatives in local government assemblies, the party promotes a predominately green agenda focusing on locally relevant environmental policies, control of public works programmes, gender equality, social welfare, education and safety. Niji to Midori is somewhat different to NET in that it has close links with the Environmental Political Party Green Assembly (Kankyosento Midori no Kaigi) which began in 2002 and has one nationally elected politician—Atsuo Nakamura—and describes itself as a preparatory step towards the creation of a Green party.18 It is really too early to judge whether these recent developments mark a significant new phase in Japanese environmental politics and the emergence of a Green party along German lines. However, it is important to recall that in the 1980s, in around only three to four years, the German Green Party jumped from 1.5 per cent to 5.6 per cent of the federal vote and from 1.4 per cent to 7 per cent of the local council seats (Schreurs 2002:86–87). Conclusions The most recent round of administrative reforms reflects not only the current difficult economic circumstances in Japan but bundled into these reforms has been a search for a new environmental management regime which has been given a number of labels including the ‘environmental protection style society’ (kankyo hozengata shakai) and the recirculatory society (junkangatta shakai) promoting the need for systemic thinking that goes beyond traditional policy responses. Recognizing that Japan may currently be in the transition to a more decentralized and participatory approach to environmental governance, it is nevertheless difficult to shift away from the dominant view in the literature portraying Japanese policy-making as elitist and closed, where policies are made by a centralized, strongly bureaucratic system with little space for pluralist influences (Johnson 1995; McCormack 1998; WooCummings 1999). In McCormack’s critique of the Japanese economic miracle he maintains that: bureaucratic autonomy and privilege, and the exclusion of democratic principles, may have been part of the formula of successful growth in the early post-war decades, but vested bureaucratic interest now constitutes a major blockage to the sorts of fundamental reform of which 21st Century Japan stands in need. (McCormack 1998:41)


This viewpoint appears to be well understood in Japan and hence the recent efforts to bring about change. The main concern, however, is whether or not these changes are more than superficial. Some commentators claim for instance that new structures (such as the creation of the Central Environmental Council) are designed to solicit broad input but end up retaining strong governmental control and function as instruments of bureaucratic manipulation (Whittaker 1997). Others contend that the environmental policy networks are relatively closed because of ministerial control of participant selection and the tendency to exclude individuals and NGOs that might criticize government actions (Schreurs 1996a). In the past, these practices of social exclusion have worked to reduce the effectiveness of NGOs and to limit public access to environmental information (OECD 1994). Nevertheless, in this chapter we have identified some evidence that the developmental state model in Japan is being transformed and is beginning to overcome the limitations of the communitarian elite corporatist model, where policy-making occurs within a triumvirate of corporate elites, politicians and bureaucrats (Broadbent 1998; Shiozaki 2002). We will examine this issue further in Chapter 5, when we will look at the growing role of Japanese civil society in shaping policy debates on key issues. We will explore environmental policy networks and examine whether or not they are becoming more open and participatory, with measures to increase transparency and foster the consensual support of stakeholders, outside of the traditional elitist core of business, politicians and bureaucrats. Notes 1 It also potentially undermines the possibility of maintaining a critical public sphere so important for strong ecological modernization (Dryzek et al. 2003:166). 2 The MoE encourages industrial participation via the ‘technical hearing system’ where relevant technical information from industry can be heard prior to legislation, thus enabling regulators to set appropriate targets. State-industry relationships can be described as highly cooperative, with some environmental regulation only enacted after careful consideration of industry’s capacity to meet those standards via trial and error voluntary initiatives. 3 Summarized from the Japan Environment Agency (1998) Quality of the Environment in Japan, Tokyo: Government of Japan. 4 Regulation of air pollution at the national level began with the passage of the 1967 Basic Law for Environmental Pollution Control. Under this Act, standards were set for five air pollutants: sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (GO), suspended particulate matter (SPM) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The Air Pollution Control Law of 1968 set emission standards for designated sources. These standards have been constantly revised and are now some of the strictest in the world. Attainment of these standards was aided by Japan’s excellent monitoring system. This system was put in place by the Air Pollution Control Law of 1974 resulting in the establishment of an Area-Wide Total Pollutant Load Control System. 5 On 2 October 1998, the National Diet enacted the Law for the Promotion of Measures to Cope with Global Warming. The Act clarifies the role of all relevant


6

7

8

9

10 11 12

13 14

15

social actors, such as national government, local authorities, the private sector and citizens in achieving the quantitative emission reduction target of greenhouse gases (GHGs) as set out in the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Japan has two environmental quality standards for water both established in 1970. The first is designed to ensure the protection of human health by controlling the concentrations of heavy metals and toxic substances. The second protects the quality of the ‘living environment’ and deals specifically with the concentrations of organic pollutants. In 1998, the Japan Environment Agency launched a Strategic Programme on Environmental Endocrine Disrupters (SPEED) to provide the basis for international cooperation on this issue and to promote measures designed to increase relevant scientific knowledge and data, as well as disseminate that information to the public. For instance, in 1994, the Agency had a budget of Yen 67 billion and approximately 970 staff at the JEA, 275 at the National Environmental Research Institute and 27 at the National Institute for Minamata Disease Research. In the same year, the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) had 58,000 staff, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) had 23,000, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) 9,000 and the Ministry of Transport (MoT) 19,000. The designation would have been more difficult without the direct support of the former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, who is also a senior adviser of Global Environmental Action (GEA). This not for profit organization brings together three former prime ministers, politicians and senior business officials and is supported by most of the major government ministries. GEA was formerly constituted in 1995 and grew out of the International Eminent Persons’ Meeting set up by another former prime minister, Noboru Takeshita, in 1991. In addition to organizing major international conferences every two years, GEA functions as a forum for political debate on environmental topics in Japan, a connection point between different ministries and an indicator of the currency that environmental sustainability now has within some political groupings in Japan. For example, with the development of the National Strategy of Japan on Biological Diversity, formulated in 1995. In 2001, the MLIT employed around 68,000 civil servants, MAFF 42,000, METI 12,000 and MoFA 5,000. MITI (now METI) for example, has an environmental section with approximately 180 staff and an affiliated Environmental Resource Technology Integrated Research Centre with 290 staff. See Japan for Sustainability web site—http://www.japanfs.org—item posted 22 Oct. 2003. At the same time, MLIT argues that overall social security expenditure in Japan climbed throughout the 1990s from Yen 11.5 trillion in 1990 to Yen 17.6 trillion in 2001. Information on the guidelines which came into affect in October 2003 is accessible via the JBIC web site—http://www.jbic.go.jp/english/environ/guide/finance/ index.php.


16 See the following web site for more details—http://www.seikatsuclub.coop/english/ top.html. 17 For information see the following web site—http://www.nijitomidori.org/ (in Japanese only). 18 For information see the following web site—http://www.midorinokaigi.org/ (in Japanese only).

48

4 Foundations of local environmental governance Brendan F.D.Barrett and Mikoto Usui

The role of local governments in environmental policy has been important in enacting innovative policy and in pushing the central authorities to change. Many national elements of current environmental policy were first implemented by local government—and that process continues today. (Reich 1983b: 200) Ecological modernization places considerable emphasis on the need for a strong state and highlights the significant role that national sustainability strategies and institutions play in environmental conservation (Mol and Buttel 2002; Dryzek et al. 2003). Limited attention, however, has been paid by ecological modernization scholars to the various manifestations of local level experimentation and innovation in the environmental field. Nevertheless, some commentators argue that changes at both the macro-economic and micro-economic level have the potential to make significant improvements in environmental performance and that it is at the ‘regional or local level’ that detailed design of an integrated package of environmental policies is more likely to be achieved (Gouldson and Roberts 2000:7). One of the main strengths of ecological modernization relates to the way in which it has been used to analyse various discourses surrounding the relationships between industrialism and the environment (Hajer 1995). Discourse analysis has also been applied at the local level in Norway within the context of Local Agenda 21 (LA21) (Lindseth 2001a, 2001b). Lindseth argues that discourse coalitions gather around certain arguments and the confrontations that take place assist in clarifying our understanding of how change/innovation takes place. According to Lindseth (2001a), LA21 is part of a common international regime that opens up debate within communities and contributes in translating global problems into local action. Hence, in this chapter, we will look at Japanese LA21 experience in order to explore the emergence of various local discourse coalitions and make links to ecological modernization. Similar studies undertaken in Europe argue that the spread of Local Agenda 21 is an important innovative environmental policy tool that fits well into the ecological modernization framework (Joas and Gronholm 2001). This chapter evaluates recent advances in local environmental policy-making and presents the findings of surveys undertaken by the MoE, the ICLEI Asia

50 LOCAL ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE

Pacific Secretariat (ICLEI-Japan), the Global Environment Forum (GEF) and the Coalition of Local Governments for Environmental Initiatives (COLGEI).1 We elucidate five key objectives2 tacitly underpinning local environmental governance and which serve as a description of the internationally envisioned ideal-type of participatory local environmental governance. These five objectives include the promotion of (a) flexible, open decision-making structures allowing for pluralistic inputs; (b) coalition discourses/stakeholder dialogues; (c) consensual knowledge base building for local environmental management; (d) comprehensive framing of the sustainability agenda; and (e) joint implementation through multi-sectoral partnerships. Policy formulation by both central and local government in Japan has conventionally relied heavily upon the use of advisory councils, composed of government-picked experts, generally meeting behind closed doors and legitimizing bureaucratically sponsored decisions (Nakano 1997). Although there has been a marked increase in the number of environment NGOs since around 1997, as we will argue in Chapter 5, few of them have managed to effectively penetrate the inner circle of governmental policy-making. Accordingly, the distinctive manner of the Japanese response to the requirements set out from both the Rio and Johannesburg Summits may offer interesting insights on the potential for environmentally based transformations at the local level. Theoretical framework According to Meadowcroft (1999), in recent years there have been some indications of the emergence of a pattern of interactive decision-making underpinning successful environmental management efforts. This has involved multi-sectoral participation in defining and implementing solutions to specific environmental issues. Meadowcroft uses the terms cooperative management regimes (CMR) or collaborative environmental management to describe this phenomenon. He argues that changes have taken place that support the shift towards CMR formation including increased social attention devoted to environmental issues, growth in the range of organizations incorporating an environmental perspective in their workings, and the increasing internationalization of environmental policy approaches designed to integrate environmental and economic decision-making. Meadowcroft contends that ecological modernization functions as a key conceptual schema helping us to make sense of the innovations in governmental approaches to environmental management. Bearing this point in mind, we will apply the CMR theoretical framework to the analysis of the effectiveness of local environmental management efforts in Japan and to look at the recent shift toward the use of stakeholder dialogues such as LA21. CMR is a very useful analytical tool since it focuses on the integrity of the process of institutional innovation. The key features are summarized in Table 4.1. Such regimes are not envisioned as replacements for traditional government, but as a flexible mechanism that can be grafted on to existing policy-making such as laws, regulations and sanctions, taxes, prices and markets. This model of environmental governance has contemporary resonance (at least for industrialized countries) in the context of the recognized complexity and interconnectedness of environmental

BRENDAN F.D.BARRETT AND MIKOTO USUI 51

Table 4.1 Main features of cooperative management regimes

problems and the hollowing out of the state. Some of the key characteristics that link CMR to ecological modernization include the emphasis on pluralism and consensus building, horizontal policy integration, knowledge consensualization, multiple issue focus, networking and joint implementation by the stakeholders. So we can see that CMR talks the language of reform and innovation—matters very much at the heart of ecological modernization. Meadowcroft does offer words of caution when analysing changing patterns of environmental policy and indicates that care must be taken to differentiate practical outcomes from expressed intentions and in clarifying where new initiatives have not replaced old, established ways of doing things but have been merely incorporated as layered new concerns. This chapter continues with a brief discussion of the emergence of local environmental policies in Japan before exploring the recent trends in the formation of local environmental management regimes. Historical perspective system3

The local government in Japan dates from the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and was conceived as a means of unifying and penetrating society with public administration (Steiner 1965; Abe et al. 1994). There is a general lack of English material on the role of local government in environmental management in Japan. The most relevant publications include Gresser et al. (1981); McKean (1981); Samuels (1983); Reed (1986); Imura (1989); Jain (1989); Mori (1993); Barrett (1994, 1995) and Barrett and Usui (2002). Reed (1986), for instance, focused on pollution control, housing and welfare policy-making in three prefectures (Saga, Chiba and Saitama) in the 1976–1977 period. Samuels (1983) examined the politics of regional policy in Japan, and Jain (1989) shows how progressive local authorities in the 1970s and 1980s used pollution issues to gain political leverage. Local authority pollution control in the post-war era has been described as one outstanding exception to the central government’s domination of local government (Gresser et al. 1981;


Reed 1986; Jain 1989). Dramatic changes in the late 1950s forced local governments to shift from merely obediently following national targets for economic growth and industrial expansion to focus on pollution concerns. This came as a result of the severe environmental strains associated with exceptionally rapid urbanization and industrialization. These strains shaped local attitudes towards pollution, encouraged citizen protest and helped to radicalize many local governments (Gresser et al 1981; McKean 1981). In terms of environmental policy, local governments in Japan led central government in the 1960s and 1970s (Jain 1989). Interestingly, from 1969 onwards, the demand for more effective pollution control became identified with the issue of local autonomy. The trend towards the decentralization of pollution control accelerated to the point where by 1975 all 47 prefectures had passed some form of pollution control ordinance (Gresser et al 1981). Local authorities, in this period, were very innovative with regard to environmental policy-making and examples include the establishment of pollution control agreements from 1964 onwards based on the model developed by Yokohama Municipal Government (Mori 1993) and the enactment of a compensation system for pollution related health victims based on the work of Yokkaichi Municipal Government in 1965 (Reich 1983b). The majority of these local initiatives were subsequently adopted by the national administration and by the early 1970s Japan possessed one of the most complete statutory frameworks for environmental policy in the world (Reich 1983a). In the early 1970s, the need to look beyond mere pollution control to the wider issues affecting the environment was recognized and regional environmental management systems were introduced.4 These systems brought together a whole range of tools including environmental monitoring and information procedures, environmental assessment and pollution control (Barrett 1994, 1995). Another area where local authorities led national government was with respect to mandatory EIA through the enactment of local ordinances (see Chapter 7).5 Moreover, local authorities have played a fundamentally important role in fostering greater public participation in policy-making. Some, such as Kanagawa Prefecture, made efforts to increase public access to information through the enactment of freedom of information ordinances from the early 1980s (Reich 1983a). Local authorities in Japan have direct control over a wide range of environmental management responsibilities and in the past have put considerable pressure on business to conform to voluntary agreements by withholding permits or economic incentives (OECD 1994). Many policymakers and industrialists viewed local government as driving environmental policy through the imposition of tough voluntary standards and they had a reputation for listening to industry and taking technical considerations into account, which promoted a flexible, participatory approach to standard setting (Wallace 1995). Local authorities have been given the role of implementers of national government policy through delegated and assigned functions.6 In this context, numerous policy instruments have been developed to enable them to respond to environmental problems. For instance, there is a long tradition of environmental planning and, from 1973 to 1991 (i.e. one year before the Rio Earth Summit), a total of 34 environmental management plans were prepared at the prefecture level. These


plans involved the collation and analysis of data on a wide range of environmental issues and included predictions of future pollution trends. Specialist external expert committees were normally set up to oversee plan preparation and representatives of the main divisions and subdivisions within local government organized their work through internal steering committees.7 One major weakness with these plans was the failure to deal effectively with qualitative environmental issues such as scenic value, amenity, heritage and nature conservation. These qualitative issues are not easily covered by environmental standards. In order to overcome these limitations, and to obtain a broader understanding of the state of the environment, some Japanese local authorities began experimenting with public opinion surveys.8 Hence, it is evident that Japan already had a comprehensive system of local environmental planning prior to the arrival of Local Agenda 21 which contrasts significantly with the lack of such systems in, for instance, many European nations. If we look at the other ecologically modern nations, we can note that prior to 1992 only the local authorities in the Netherlands were well placed to respond to the introduction of LA21. Both Norway and Germany got off to a relatively slow start and for Sweden this was a new challenge that nevertheless fostered a dynamic response with basically all 289 local authorities adopting LA21 by 1996 (Lafferty and Eckerberg 1998). As a point of information, the second international survey of LA21 undertaken by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives revealed 54 per cent of Norwegian, 16 per cent of all Dutch and over 12 per cent of German local authorities had begun working on LA21 (ICLEI 2002). Progress with LA21 in Japan The implementation of LA21 in Japan begins in December 1993 when the national government and ICLEI-Japan established an LA21 Steering Committee, composed of academics, local government officials and representatives from various economic sectors. Their initial report published in June 1994 explained possible options that local authorities might wish to consider when developing LA21 (Japan Environment Agency 1994a). The report, however, failed to expatiate on the entire range of alternatives available for community participation. Rather, emphasis was placed on informal hearings, ad hoc gatherings, written submissions from the public and occasional questionnaire surveys. This stance was adopted apparently on the grounds that public opinion should be reflected in policies but not given too critical a weight in the decision-taking. When reviewing experience in other countries, many of the committee members tended to align themselves with the view that citizens are not particularly interested in participation but prefer to act as passive recipients of information. This view is reminiscent of the information deficit model which generally assumes that citizens when better informed about the environmental consequences of their actions will adopt more environmentally benign options over those that are environmentally destructive (Burgess et al. 1998).9 It is interesting to note that the LA21 Steering Committee’s second report of June 1995 encouraged local authorities to establish forums and working groups to ensure


wider public representation in LA21 (Global Environment Forum 1995). Some local authorities moved quickly to prepare their own LA21 strategies. These included Kanagawa Prefecture with its report entitled Agenda 21 Kanagawa published in February 1993, Hiroshima Prefecture with Econet 21 Hiroshima published in August of the same year and the Aichi Agenda 21 published by Aichi Prefecture in December 1994. In subsequent years, the national administration has annually monitored local authority progress with the development of LA21 and Environment Basic Plans (EBP): two parallel forms of environmental planning in Japan. The 1994 Environment Basic Plan (EBP) at the national level required that local government take responsibility for the formulation of their own action plans concordant with specific locally determined needs and priorities (Japan Environment Agency 1994b; Utsunomiya 1999). Data from the 1997 survey showed that 38 prefectures and 11 designated cities had prepared such plans (Global Environment Forum 1999). This represents 83 per cent of all upper-tier local authorities. Two years later, the 1999 survey results revealed an increase in activity with 45 prefectures and 71 designated cities and larger municipal authorities having prepared either an LA21 or EBP. Data available for May 2000 indicates a total of 45 prefectures, 12 designated cities and 125 municipalities have produced either LA2110 or EBP. This latter figure for municipalities increased to 184 by February 2002 (MoE 2002b) and then to 318 in March 2003 (MoE 2003a). Information on the development of LA21 in the lower-tier municipalities (671 cities, 23 special wards in Tokyo, 1,990 towns and 568 villages) is more limited. A survey undertaken by the COLGEI in 1998 covering 1,394 municipalities revealed that 175 (12.6 per cent) had actually prepared an LA21 and/or EBP (COLGEI 1999). Taking the above data into consideration, it is possible to conservatively conclude that around 13 per cent of all Japanese local authorities had produced an LA21 or EBP by May 1999. It is likely that this proportion could increase to a maximum of 30 per cent in the future, bearing in mind the severe resource and expertise limitations that most of the smaller local authorities face in Japan. For instance, the average local authority population size in Japan is very small at around 38,000 and few are in a position to orchestrate the type of cross-departmental coordination that LA21 requires. Barriers to participatory local environmental management Since 1992, Japanese local authorities have made slow but steady progress in the adoption of more deliberative forms of local environmental policy-making. This has been achieved in the face of significant institutional, political and societal barriers, including major government reform, shifts in demographic structures (emergence of an aging society—see Kingston 2001), on-going economic recession, as well as new demands stemming from the impact of information technology. While in the 1970s local government led the national administration in the development of environmental legislation, in more recent years national interference in local environmental affairs has been very significant (Broadbent 1998; Tsuru 1999). This may reflect the increasingly complex and interconnected nature of sustainable development issues


confronting local authorities, requiring national guidance and coordination. At the same time, this situation has been compounded by the growing frustration in many sectors of society with established regulatory mechanisms. This led the national politicians and the administration to the search for new models (e.g. national government restructuring and decentralization reforms) and created an interesting and challenging milieu for the realization of more participatory forms of local environmental governance. For instance, Japanese local governments recently entered a period of institutional innovation set off by the 1995 Decentralization Promotion Act that includes provisions for the transfer of authority from central to local government and from prefectures to municipalities but also with significant implications for local environmental regulation in the longer term (Isobe 1999). However, as yet this has not impacted on the actual structuring of environmental responsibilities within and between local governments. Moreover, there is considerable overlap in relation to the environmental control functions between, and within, the two tiers of local government.11 Radical reform and innovation at the local government level has not proven possible to date but may form part of the next round of institutional change. One of the biggest issues for local environmental officials in the 1990s was how to balance the competing approaches specified under LA21 and EBP (Japan Environment Agency 1994a; Global Environment Forum 1995; Takahashi 2000a). EBP is a nationally driven, environment-focused, mandatory initiative calling on local authorities to develop environmental management plans in consultation with local stakeholders (Utsunomiya 1999). LA21, on the other hand, is an internationally driven initiative, with a multiple issue-based approach focused on sustainability. It is voluntary and promotes participatory/partnership forms of public engagement in local policy formulation (Global Environment Forum 1999). Official guidance on how to differentiate between these two initiatives has been limited (Kitamura 1997). Generally, the national government and ICLEI-Japan contend that LA21 and EBP are the same (Japan Environment Agency 1994a; ICLEI—Japan 2001). However, if properly implemented, LA21 ought to represent a significant departure from the traditional model of Japanese local environmental governance. In contrast, the EBP is firmly based on conventional practices with advisory councils, strong business involvement, and the reliance on public opinion surveys rather than public participation. The dilemma for many local authorities is such that: if they want to conform to national programmes they should develop an EBP; but if they want to be innovative, they should develop an LA21. In many cases, local authorities have done both, designating the EBP as an administrative plan and LA21 as a community or a globally inspired local action plan. This generates concerns about duplication, wasted effort and loss of credibility (Takahashi 2000b). Nevertheless, the advent of both LA21 and EBP has impacted on the previously compartmentalized and closed approach to policy formulation in Japan.12 Most of the early attempts to promote deliberative models, however, tended to remain rather firmly within the existing bureaucratic framework with administrators taking the lead in the process. In many instances, this initially resulted in local bureaucrats simply renaming an existing environmental management plan as an LA21 or an existing


advisory group as an Environmental Forum. It was only in the late 1990s that new models of local deliberative environmental governance became apparent. Four early adopters of this approach include the cases of EBP development in the cities of Iida, Shiki and Hino, and of LA21 implementation in Toyonaka. In each case significant emphasis was placed on public-private partnerships, with local community actors, on occasion, directing the process. The first example, Iida City in Nagano Prefecture, has a population of just over 100,000 and began developing its most recent environmental plan in 1992 in a participatory manner through the involvement of environmental investigators recruited from the local community and in collaboration with local environmental NGOs. The plan was completed in 1996 and contains a set of numerical targets. The plan’s performance is assessed every five years. Iida City has been very effective in establishing other major environmental initiatives and was designated as an Eco-Town area by METI in July 1997 and three years later, in April 2000, established an EcoIndustrial Park designed to promote recycling activities. The second example, Shiki City (with a population of 64,000) is located in Saitama Prefecture, roughly 25 kilometres from Tokyo. Shiki City has experienced a local NPO-led environmental planning process in which citizens play a central role with emphasis on building a permanent mechanism, called Eco-Community Forum, to facilitate local environmental and welfare activities. The forum was composed of 26 citizens from different parts of the city acting in parallel with the officers’ group responsible for coordinating activities within the local authority. In the third example, Hino City (population of 170,000 and located in Tokyo), the successful interface between the municipal government’s EBP and the citizen sponsored Green Master Plan represents a break from the tendency of Japanese local authorities to hold stakeholder dialogues post facto and generally behind closed doors, only to legitimate officially sponsored decisions and pacify critics within the community. In the case of Hino City, 109 citizens were recruited for one year by the Public Relations Department to participate in a working group composed of five subcommittees on air, water, greenery, recycling and the living environment. This innovative leap forward in the promotion of more inclusive forms of civic engagement is largely attributable to personal enthusiasm and resilient leadership on the part of particular city officials charged with the task. Nevertheless, it seems to have set an important precedent for other local authorities and has brought about some significant results. For instance, in October 2000, Hino City implemented a set of waste control measures (called the ‘Waste Revolution’) in collaboration with citizens that resulted in a waste reduction of approximately 48 per cent over two years, and a tripling of resource recovery.13 With respect to the fourth case, Toyonaka City (located in Osaka Prefecture and with a population of 400,000) may be considered as by far the most ‘successful’ LA21 development process in Japan tackling an ambitious range of local environmental issues as shown in Table 4.2. The Toyonaka Citizens Environment Forum was launched in May 1996 and given responsibility to develop an LA21 for the locality. A total of 150 groups were represented in the Forum including industrial associations, the local chamber of commerce, research institutes, welfare groups and women’s associations. Subsequently, in September


1997, four working groups were established, composed of 30 members, and held meetings once each month. In addition, working group members were actively involved in various campaigns to promote environmental action such as ‘Stop Engine Idling’. The Toyonaka Agenda 21 was published in March 1999, at the same time as the municipal EBP, setting a new course for the development of genuine community engagement in Japan. Evaluation of recent innovative practices Prior to the World Summit on Sustainable Development, ICLEI—Japan undertook a survey of 181 local authorities in January 2001 (ICLEI—Japan 2001). A total of 129 local authorities (i.e. 72 per cent) returned completed questionnaires. The questions asked are set out in the global survey of local authorities and can be viewed on the ICLEI web site (http://www.iclei.org). In evaluating the significance of social innovations designed to create new forms of participatory environmental governance in Japan, it may be worth while recalling that a frame-work for such local systems was expounded in Chapter 28 of Agenda 21. This has been further elaborated in subsequent years (Agyeman and Evans 1994; Selman 1996; Buckingham-Hatfield and Percy 1999) and was clearly set out in the main criteria used in the ICLEI 2001 survey to evaluate LA21 performance (ICLEI—Japan 2001). Using the above as a basis, we have identified a set of five objectives that comply with an ideal-type description of LA21 processes. The focus of the evaluation is essentially on the integrity of the process of institutional innovation being triggered by LA21 and not the outcome (which should be uniquely local). Indeed, a more challenging issue would be whether this process, in its current design, is delivering results in terms of local environmental improvements. Interestingly, studies referring to experience elsewhere point to the lack of success of LA21 in this respect (Selman 1998; Blake 1999) and we recognize the need for similar research to be undertaken in Japan. Let us now proceed with an evaluation of the performance with LA21 in the context of five objectives:

Table 4.2 Environmental planning experience in four localities





• Promoting pluralistic approaches: Essentially this can be understood as the democratization of policy-making which is tied into the themes of subsidiarity, decentralization, partnership, citizen participation and empowerment (Agyeman and Evans 1994). LA21 can thus be seen as a means to democratize the predominately bureaucratic systems of environmental management. However, the focus of this objective is not on the matter of ideology but specifically on the diversity of stakeholders allowed to provide inputs into local policy processes. It is clear from the ICLEI—Japan survey that Japanese local authorities have made limited inroads in this area and so far the groups in society that are traditionally poorly represented (youth, women, unemployed, etc.), remain so despite the increasing emphasis placed on the issues of social inclusion in LA21s (mirrored by experience in the UK—see Young 1998). For instance, although 12 per cent of the responding local authorities indicate that local women’s groups are formal partners in the LA21 process, only 2 per cent indicate that women’s issues are priorities for action. In designing participatory mechanisms or stakeholder dialogues to support pluralistic inputs into the policy process, care needs to be exercised by the local authority in order not to fall into the trap of establishing just another bureaucratic device. In Japan and elsewhere local authorities pursuing deliberative environmental policy approaches need to balance the maintenance of some form of ‘structured informality’ in order to keep relationships with partners loose and unrestricting (Reinicke and Deng 2000), while at the same time ensuring long-term involvement and commitment. Creating and sustaining these participatory forums and dialogues is proving to be tremendously time-consuming and demanding. • Discourse coalitions: The reported successes with LA21 development in Japan and elsewhere relate largely to the phase of listening to and learning from local citizens and business groups in the planning process (Macnaghten et al. 1995; Buckingham-Hatfield and Percy 1999; Takahashi 2000b). Wider experience in Japan highlights the initial difficulties faced by local authorities in effectively engaging their communities (even at the planning phase, let alone the subsequent phases of implementation and monitoring). Although 79 per cent of respondents to the ICLEI-Japan survey indicate that there is multi-stakeholder engagement in the visioning process and 63 per cent indicate that there is consultation with community partners in the creation of a shared vision, there is a significant drop to 40 per cent for those indicating that monitoring and reporting procedures are in place to allow participants to be held accountable. Moreover, only 4 per cent of the respondents state that the local stakeholder group is responsible for the environmental policy process and manages the budget while another 34 per cent answered that no formal group exists. The majority (51 per cent) indicates that a stakeholder group provides input to the process and most (66 per cent) made it clear that the local authority manages almost all aspects of the deliberations. Nevertheless, these results may be indicative of a modest opening up of the previously closed policy formulation practices. There are also some signs that LA21 has proved successful in promoting greater integration within local authorities (although not between local authorities): 21 per cent indicate that a


process is in place to integrate LA21 into the entire municipal system and 38 per cent state that LA21 helps to improve inter-departmental cooperation. However, in response to the question on the activities under way in relation to various LA21 issues, only 4 per cent indicate tourism related activities, 5 per cent economic development, 7 per cent culture and 8 per cent health. It may well be that local environmental officials recognize the need for a more integrated approach and yet remain devoid of authority to influence the practice in upstream industries and social activities that fall under the jurisdiction of other departments. Supporting this view, 32 per cent of the respondents answered that insufficient inter-departmental cooperation is a major impediment to the execution of LA21. Shared knowledge base: The generation and consensualization of a local knowledge base for environmental management is a central component in the pursuit of long-term local sustainability (Grove-White 1996; Fischer 2000). However, experience in Japan illustrates the persistence of participation methods that allow only a narrow flow of information between the local authority and community, rather than widespread engagement, deliberation and negotiation. Over 50 per cent of all respondents indicated that questionnaire surveys were the most common method of participation followed by public meetings (29 per cent). Participatory workshops have been used by a number of local authorities (21 per cent) but their links to the policy process are unclear.14 Interestingly, when asked about major constraints to LA21 development, lack of community interest is seen as the most significant (39 per cent of all respondents). Equally significant is the lack of funds. Other constraints such as lack of information, lack of expertise and insufficient community consensus are only viewed as significant by around 16 to 18 per cent of respondents. In part the lack of community interest may reflect the persistence of a clear and as yet unbridgeable perception gap between local government officials and the public. LA21 experience in Japan reveals that local government officials working with expert scientific advisers and specialists often tend to dominate stakeholder dialogues. It is evident that effective community engagement will not occur in Japan without considerably more effort to develop deliberative models of policy formulation which place emphasis on the role of the expert in facilitating the discourse between community and local authority (Fischer 2000). Local scientific expertise needs to be combined with more deliberative forms of communication rather than occasional public explanatory meetings and issuance of information brochures (Burgess et al. 1998). In essence, this implies a gradual transition to more extensive forms of community engagement through the adoption of measures to circumvent existing weaknesses in the Japanese advocacy model (e.g. asking tough questions about who sets the agenda and how consensus is reached) including the development of, and support for, local policy oriented epistemic communities (Haas 1989, 1990; Fischer 2000).15 • Comprehensiveness: Both the results from the ICLEI-Japan survey and the findings from the case studies presented above imply that LA21 in Japan is having a modest, yet positive, impact on the evolution of flexible organizational arrangements and networks to further social learning about sustainable


development. This is a particularly significant and very recent (in the past two to three years) advancement in Japan. The membership of grassroots NGOs, at present, is small and unstable, but they are growing and spreading across local authority boundaries and becoming more closely involved in many of the innovative LA21 exercises. However, despite the significant contribution made by these NGOs, the sustainability agenda in Japan, while evolving, remains significantly narrower than that found elsewhere, with areas such as poverty alleviation, women and youth issues, unemployment, safety, culture and recreation excluded. As could be expected, 71 per cent of the respondents to the ICLEI-Japan survey indicate that LA21 focuses on ‘environmental protection with consideration of economic and social concerns’. Only 13 per cent felt that it had something to do with ‘equity and justice’, a mere 19 per cent considered ‘ecological limits’ to be an important facet and only 37 per cent considered ‘transparency’ (i.e. all information related to the process is easily available to the public) as a formal component. • Joint implementation: This places emphasis on issue management and the need for commitment to problem-solving action. In this context, LA21s can be conceived, not just as talking shops for interest articulation, but from a more proactive perspective as a means to engage the community in assessing information, promoting solutions and implementing them. Unfortunately, data on the actual implementation of problem-specific tasks agreed upon through the LA21 process is still very sparse in Japan. While respondents to the ICLEI-Japan survey tended to highlight the impact of LA21 implementation with respect to waste reduction, energy conservation, greenhouse gas reduction and citizen environmental awareness, there are few examples where concrete resources have been pledged for LA21 implementation by the industrial and social sectors. Most success stories about the consultation and negotiation phases leave a certain degree of apprehension regarding the availability of an effective framework for future review of the original agreements (Nakaguchi 1999; Takahashi 2000b). Conclusions The empirical evidence suggests recent significant changes in structures and local policy processes in a very limited number of smaller local authorities in Japan. First, the examples presented confirm that local environmental deliberations have been utilized as a conduit for civic engagement that complements, rather than distracts from, the traditional processes as found with the use of Environment Basic Plans. Experience in locations such as Iida, Hino, Shiki and Toyonaka has taken local communities a step closer toward democratic engagement in effective environmental governance. Second, new environmental policy practices have contributed to greater inter-departmental cooperation (although this remains a major constraint in many local authorities) and have created new modes of policy dialogues through a variety of discourse coalitions such as local forums or working groups. Third, a very small number of local authorities have begun to relinquish control over the environmental


agenda to other stakeholders in the locality, which in turn may have profound long-term implications for the future of Japanese local environmental governance. Nevertheless, the ICLEI-Japan survey results also highlight widespread and significant problems such as a narrowly focused environmental agenda, the prevalence of local authorities retaining control over the process and budget, the lack of inter-departmental cooperation, limited experimentation with different forms of community engagement and the difficulty of ensuring commitment to action from other local stakeholders. There is, it appears, much confusion in Japan surrounding conceptual groundwork for sustainable development at the local level. In commenting on the findings of the ICLEI-Japan survey, Takahiro Nakaguchi, Director of COLGEI, explained the difficulty faced by many respondents in completing the questionnaire due to lack of understanding of the questions and terminology used, such as ecological limits, equity, participatory assessment and so on. For many local officials, the main objective is to develop an ‘environmental management plan’ in a consultative manner (something they are very good at)—not a process to create a vision of a sustainable future requiring long-term and intimate community engagement. Most Local Agenda 21s prepared to date in Japan are still in the initial phase of development. Their quality has not been comprehensively assessed and most local authorities have yet to evaluate the changes in practical performance in the context of their initial strategy. Lacking concrete information on the implementation impacts, it is difficult to evaluate the true significance of the changes in local environmental policy in other than procedural terms. Indeed, in the longer term, it may well be that new processes prove to be no better than the traditional approaches to environmental management in terms of delivering solutions to pressing local and global environmental problems. In Japan, the initial impression, after examining the functions of local authorities in the area of environmental management, is that they actually function as local environment agencies. However, upon closer examination certain clear weaknesses become apparent, the most noticeable of which are the constraints imposed by the national administration and the pro-development lobby. In particular, the vulnerability of Japan’s approach to nature conservation has been exposed (OECD 1994). The environmental activities of Japan’s local government appear relatively well coordinated. However, the degree to which the Local Agenda 21 process will continue to make in-roads into the relatively stable local environmental management bureaucratic practices is also unclear. Notes 1 At the time of writing, ICLEI-Japan enjoys membership from some 46 Japanese local authorities. The Coalition of Local Governments for Environmental Initiatives (COLGEI) is an informal nation-wide network that provides opportunities for exchange of experience on LA21 and related environmental initiatives particularly among lower-tier local autonomies. Although COLGEI’s membership has not yet exceeded 50 local authorities, participation at the annual


2

3

4

5 6

three-day Local Government Environment Conference often includes over 1,000 local officials. These objectives happen to be largely (though not entirely) comparable to James Meadowcroft’s conceptual delineation of ‘cooperative management regimes’ (Meadowcroft 1999). There are a few other analytical frameworks of possible relevance for evaluating LA21 related activities, such as the information deficit model (Burgess et al. 1998), the policy epistemic model (Fischer 2000) or the civic/ deliberative model (Owens 2000), but these would seem more useful when addressing the issues of engagement in case-specific analyses than when the focus is on the integrity of the process of institutional innovation. Japan has a two-tier system of local government composed of municipalities (of which there were 3,229 as of April 2000) and 47 prefectures and 12 designated cities (population over 0.5 million and powers equivalent to those of the prefectures). The second tier is made up of smaller cities, towns and villages. The organization of the first tier is generally uniform, with two exceptions: (1) the prefecture and municipalities in Tokyo are combined into a single organization and administered under special provisions; and (2) Tokyo contains special wards (ku) which are described as a third level of government. In general, with the exception of the designated cities, prefectures are superior to the municipalities, and all communications between central government and the municipalities must pass through the prefectures. The prefectures deal with region-wide issues and ensure the coordination of activities across municipalities. With the exception of Tokyo, all prefectures have identical functions. There is, however, considerable variation amongst the municipalities. It is important to recall that in Japan the concept of environmental management was introduced through the 1973 White Paper on the Environment. Moreover, much of the early strategic thinking behind Japan’s efforts to develop local and regional environmental management was undertaken by the Central Council for Environmental Pollution Control. In 1972, the Council published an interim report that called for programmes to (a) realize the environmentally sound utilization of land, (b) re-evaluate the current relationship between environmental management and development in existing programmes, and (c) examine ways to secure environmental control in an integrated way. Subsequently in September 1973, Osaka Prefectural Government published Japan’s first local environmental management plan, which in line with CCEPC recommendations sought to develop an integrated pollution control policy. A number of local authorities beginning with Kawasaki Municipal Government in 1976 passed their own local EIA ordinances (Barrett and Therivel 1991). The environmental administration has been delegated to local government with respect to environmental sanitation, pollution control and preservation of cultural property. However, the enforcement of measures in relation to mining, electricity (including nuclear power and radioactivity), gas, transport and water resources remains under centralized control. Regulation of air and water pollution in Japan remains in local authority control primarily at the prefecture and designated city level. The municipal authorities have control over noise, vibration and offensive odours.


7 Nagoya City, for example, set up an external committee composed of 26 delegates drawn from anti-pollution specialists, professional groups (lawyers, doctors, academics, etc.) and registered voters (selected by lottery). 8 Tokyo Metropolitan Government surveyed the opinion of 3,664 people in 1991 asking their views on the cleanness of local air and water, urban amenity and their interaction with the natural environment. 9 The information deficit model, however, has been challenged as too simplistic in the international literature on local sustainability (Macnaghten et al. 1995; Burgess et al. 1998; Blake 1999; Owens 2000). Rather, it is argued that public deliberation is essential in framing environmental problems (Smith 2003). Government’s role is to support meaningful action in the community, although it appears that few have faith in the ability of local government to achieve this (Macnaghten and Jacobs 1997; Burgess et al. 1998; Selman 1998; Blake 1999). Consequently, there are increasing calls for a new civic deliberation model that is designed to avoid the pitfalls of older forms of public participation and takes account of the important influence of cultural rules and social networks (Selman and Parker 1997; Smith et al 1999; Owens 2000; Takahashi 2000a). 10 Thirty-five of them specifically mention LA21 in the title. 11 In the 1970s and 1980s, many local authorities set up new divisions to handle environment related issues. As a result, a rather complex picture exists at the local level in Japan whereby around 30 per cent of all local authorities have wellestablished and resourced environmental management systems, while the remaining 70 per cent rely almost completely on the upper-tier prefectural authorities (Nakaguchi et al 1999). In Osaka Prefecture, for instance, located in central Japan, mutually unconnected LA21 strategies have been developed by Osaka City in March 1995, by Osaka Prefectural Government in June 1996 and subsequently by Toyonaka City in March 1999. 12 Similar problems associated with the introduction of participatory policy formulation initiatives are cited in studies of experience in other countries (Macnaghten and Jacobs 1997; Marvin and Guy 1997; Lafferty and Eckerberg 1998). 13 Waste reduction performance data can be found at this web site—http:// www.city.hino.tokyo.jp/info/gomi/27.htm (in Japanese only). 14 The results of questionnaire surveys can be incorporated directly into an environmental plan, usually in a technical annex. However, it is more difficult to highlight the outcomes from participatory workshops and their influence on the policy outcomes. 15 This term is most commonly applied to international negotiations and refers to groups of individuals engaged in policy innovation through issue framing, interest redefinition and standard setting in conjunction with agenda-specific forums.

5 The transformation of social movements and civil society Jeffrey Broadbent and Brendan F.D.Barrett

Whereas environmental NGOs and even Green Parties have been central players in environmental policy formation in the West, in Japan large environmental NGOs failed to become institutionalized… (Schreurs 1996a: 1) In this chapter we define civil society as being constituted by autonomous associations formed voluntarily by citizens to further common social interests (Putnam 1993). Using this definition as a guide we explore whether Japanese society is becoming more pluralistic and diverse. We look at the extent to which Japanese civil society is actually built upon self-directed forms of association, in the original theoretical sense, or whether the term community organizational sector remains a more accurate description. What do we mean by this? Simply that in the past Japanese community organizations were part of an inclusive social corporatism controlled by elites. However, over the past three decades we consider that this situation has been gradually changing with environmental movements playing an important role in this transformation. Hence, we will analyse this shift: its pattern, process and extent, and the implications for Japan’s ecological modernization. Our basic argument is that societal changes and emerging social needs, matched by shifting popular values and structural changes in the political system, have provided additional leverage for the growth of a diverse range of groups in Japanese society (Curtis 2002:8; Furukawa and Menju 2003). The developmental, corporatist and activist Japanese state is slowly being transformed, some would use the term ‘crumbling’, and seeking a more equitable affiliation with a wider range of civil society representatives. Advisory councils (shingikai) to the government, for instance, formerly the preserve of representatives from business or conservative academia, are starting to include more people from a variety of citizens’ associations (Hirata 2002: 1). Moreover, a recent network analysis of NGO participation in Japanese environmental decision-making finds that some domestic Japanese environmental NGOs are attaining fuller participation, even though the government still tends to exclude international NGOs such as Greenpeace or WWF (Broadbent and Devitt 2001). These tendencies imply that the very nature of the associations in the civil sector is changing and the main point of contention may be over the degree of transformation rather than the direction.

68 SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND CIVIL SOCIETY

In the past, most traditional village or neighbourhood organizations had close ‘Vertical’ ties to political patrons who steered them in conservative directions. Even environmental protest movements during the 1960s and 1970s, to be successful, had to gain support from local notables while at the same time putting themselves at risk from ‘co-option’ (Broadbent 2003). Now, however, new forms of association, growing from ordinary citizens voluntarily drawn together by their mutual interests, are starting to arise. In contrast to the older-style community organizations, these new ones are composed of individuals who are willing to develop personal ties and trustbased relationships with strangers (i.e. persons outside their immediate social circle). Such individual networks are foreign to traditional Japan’s commitment-forming, group-based structures (Schwartz 2003:7). This social transformation has supporters within the ruling elite who see the potential to politically and socially reinvigorate Japan as being fundamentally linked to the existence of an energetic civil society (Schwartz 2003:14). Consequently, there has been a gradual reduction in the communication barriers between the traditional elites (bureaucrats, politicians and business leaders) and civil society. The former increasingly see NGOs as providers of resources, expertise and alternative perspectives regarding possible development paths (Hirata 2002; Schreurs 2002: 258). In this chapter, we will explore the degree to which a more active civil society is emerging in Japan, with special focus on the contribution of environmental organizations, and examine the kinds of institutional changes and causal factors that have made this possible. The focus of our analysis will be the degree to which Japanese civil society is moving toward fulfilling the theoretical definition noted above. In other words, we will be considering the basic question, how voluntary and autonomous are Japan’s community organizations becoming, and why? Transformation of environmental movements and civil society Although Japan has a long-established tradition of civic engagement, traceable back to the feudal era, Japanese civil society has struggled to assert the levels of influence found by its counterparts in Europe and North America (Katoh 2002; Garon 2003). The imposition of more democratic institutions and social class structures after the Second World War strengthened the potential for civil (as distinct from strictly student, political or economic) society in Japan. Its growth, however, has followed a distinctly indigenous path—an explosion and decline of locally based groups in the 1960s and 1970s, a slow growth of voluntary associations until the 1990s, and then a more rapid expansion. In Chapter 2 we discussed the evolution of environmental issues in Japan. In many respects, the fortunes of the environmental movements have followed a similar trajectory. Local anti-pollution groups (jumin undo) and citizen groups (shimin undo) were very effective at the time of the pollution crisis in the 1950s and 1960s (McKean 1981; Vosse 2000; Hirata 2002).1 A wave of local environmental protests swept Japan, peaking in the early 1970s when membership numbered as many as 6 million (Schreurs 1994). This wave of protest galvanized widespread media and public support. Individual environmental protest groups exerted political pressure by employing a variety of techniques: the blockade and

JEFFREY BROADBENT AND BRENDAN F.D.BARRETT 69

rejection of government sponsored industrial projects, successful electoral support for opposition candidates, litigation, media campaigns, lobbying of local government and mobilizing opposition party politicians to raise criticisms in the Diet. In response, as it became ever more difficult to push through industrial projects and faced with possible electoral loss, the national growth coalition, led by the LDP, decided to compromise (Broadbent 1998:98–112). In a historic change, the 1970 Pollution Diet enacted a range of important environmental legislation2 (Barrett and Therivel 1991; Hirata 2002:16). Unfortunately, while the grievance-based environmental protest movements had a lasting effect upon government pollution control policy, they generally did not survive as organizations or mature into a more stable form; they mostly dissolved by the 1980s (Vosse 2000:187; Schreurs 2002:71). Several factors contributed to the environmental movements’ pattern of rapid growth and rapid decline. The very success of their campaign, evidenced by dramatically decreasing air and water pollution, took away the sting of immediacy for many local issues. The 1973 ‘Oil Shock’ (rapid oil price rise) put the country into recession, turning people’s attention to economic issues. At the same time, the growth coalition staged a quiet campaign to weaken protest movements. The conservative elites wanted to prevent the institutionalization of movements into permanent legitimate fixtures of the political landscape (Schreurs 1996a; Broadbent 1998). This campaign played out through a number of factors on a number of levels. Through its national patron-client machine, LDP politicians activated their local representatives to cajole, bribe and wheedle their neighbours not to join, or to desist from, environmental groups. At the same time, traditional constraints continued: bureaucrats refused to give out information on their plans or about environmental conditions, hampering the movements’ efforts to resist. The bureaucracies also continued their refusal to grant tax-exempt status or the right to incorporate to movements, further hampering them.3 In place of citizen-initiative groups, the government set up ‘third sector groups’ (GONGOs—government organized NGOs), sponsored by corporations and led by retired ministers. These ersatz NGOs filled the space of ‘civil society’, giving the illusion of strong grassroots influence when in reality it did not exist. As a result the most effective social movements tended to be those pursuing community benefits, with the best example, as mentioned in Chapter 3, being the Cooperative Association (Seikatsu Club). With the growth of the urban middle class, the consumer movements have been very active on the local political front and have constantly struggled to get political representation for consumer interests, to inform citizens of their consumer rights and to raise awareness of environmental issues (Peng-Er 1999; Maclachlan 2003). Only in the past decade have Japan’s new social movements and NGOs begun to vigorously pursue issues of a more general benefit for society, such as the reduction of global warming. In this, they signify a transformation and internationalization of Japan’s community organizational sector toward the Western theoretical definitions of civil society and the public sphere. Fieldwork in Japan supports this generalization. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Broadbent conducted fieldwork research (in small-town and medium-city Oita prefecture) on a number of the NIMBY-style movements (Broadbent 1998). These


movements were concerned with the removal of industrial pollution related threats from their immediate neighborhoods. More recently, in autumn 2002, Broadbent conducted fieldwork research on environmental movements in urban Sendai and found that they were concerned primarily with global warming and other global pollution problems. These two types of movements, from the 1970s and from the early 2000s, seem typical of the most active movements in their respective historical eras. As Table 5.1 shows, these two types of movements differ in many significant ways, not all attributable simply to their rural-urban locations. Table 5.1 uses analytical categories derived from social movement theory to present the ‘ideal-type’ summary of some important qualities of each type of movement.4 These two ‘idealtype’ models reveal great differences in goals, membership, ideologies (or values), organization, tactics, strategies, the types of obstacles and the societal circumstances they draw upon, operate within and seek to change. What factors have been significant in bringing about these changes? One possible explanation could be the emergence of new risks in the 1990s that affected all Japanese rather than individual communities. For instance, in the mid-1990s public concern about toxic chemicals swelled and reached crisis proportions. Dioxin, PCBs and other toxins were identified as ‘environmental hormones’ (kankyo horumon, endocrine disrupters) (Japan Times 1998; Yomiuri 1998; Yoshida and Iguchi 1998).5 Scientists attributed increasing rates of human foetal deformity, cancer and skin disease, as well as fish deformities, to these sources (Hasegawa 1998; Kawana 1998; Nagayama 1998:76; Ueda 1998:76; Risaikuru, n.d.). Fish caught near Japan exhibited extremely high dioxin concentrations (Nagayama 1998:65). Between 1967 and 1987, skin allergy diseases (atopii) attributable to toxic pollution increased sevenfold (Nagayama 1998:23). The smoke from 1,854 local refuse incinerators, the most in any country in the world, was identified as one reason for the spread of dioxin in surrounding communities (Asahi Newspaper, 22 May 1997; Nagayama 1998: 124–130; Ueda 1998:43–50). Moreover, accidents at several nuclear plants intensified public fears about the safety of these facilities. These included the leakage of two to three tons of liquid sodium coolant from the Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor in Fukui Prefecture in December 1995 and the explosion at a PNC Bituminization Demonstration Facility at the Tokai Works in March 1997 (Sawai 1998; IEA 1999). These conditions, worsened by government inaction, set off a new wave of environmental protest (Kajiyama 1995; Asahi Newspaper, 7 and 13 July 1997). Between 1990 and 1997, 717 distinct groups conducted 944 protests against nuclear and toxic pollution (Taguchi 1998:242). Furthermore, in addition to protests, irate citizens sought to employ plebiscites as a tool to influence local political decisions on environmentally hazardous projects. In August 1996, the village of Maki in Niigata Prefecture, using Japan’s first binding local referendum, rejected a nuclear plant. Roughly 88 per cent of the voters turned out for the referendum, and nearly 61 per cent voted against construction of a reactor by Tohoku Electric Power Company, with 39 per cent in favour (Takubo 1997). Although strictly speaking the results of referendums are not binding and under most circumstances local


Table 5.1 Chronological comparison of environmental movements in Japan


governments do not have power to reject government sponsored projects such as nuclear power plants, referendums are effective as a means of demonstrating public concern. In the Maki case, the municipal government owned the site of the reactor and could refuse to sell. Aware of this, citizen groups convinced the mayor to allow the referendum and to follow its decision. One year later, in June 1997, the first local referendum on the question of whether or not to construct an industrial waste disposal facility was held in the town of Mitake, Gifu Prefecture. The referendum result showed that those against greatly exceeded those in favour (80 per cent to 19 per cent). Another referendum in November the same year led to the rejection of an industrial waste facility in the city of Kobayashi, Miyazaki Prefecture. This was followed by referendums in February, June and August 1998 in the town of Yoshinaga, Okayama Prefecture, the city of Shiroishi, Miyazaki Prefecture and the town of Unakami, Chiba Prefecture, respectively. In all these cases, the opposition votes exceeded 90 per cent. The government reacted to this wave of protest and referendums with new laws and standards for waste disposal, including marine disposal (see Chapter 8). In 1997, the Upper House, ruled by an opposition party coalition, finally passed a weakened version of the long-sought EIA law (see Chapter 7). The implementation of this law


may in part explain the success of environmental protest groups opposed to the Aichi Expo 2005, and the reclamation of Fujimae Tidal Flats (Nagoya) and of the Sanbanze Tidal Flats (Chiba). However, it is important to recognize that in the 1990s environmental groups lost far more disputes than they won. Wilhelm Vosse, in his detailed study of environmental movements in contemporary Japan, estimates that in the 1990s there were between 50 and 100 single-issue protest movements in Japan including the Nagara River Dam, reclamation projects in Isahaya Bay and Shinji Lake, second runways at the Narita and Kansai Airports, new airports in Kobe and Okinawa and numerous landfill projects such as that found in Hinode-machi (Tokyo) (Vosse 2000:76). In exploring the environmental protests at the Nagara Dam and in Hinode-machi, Vosse shows how the movements in both cases failed to stop the developments. He argues, though, that the endurance and strength of the Anti-Nagara Dam movement may have proved inspirational for other movements including those that succeeded in blocking the dam on the Yoshino River (Vosse 2000:110). When commenting on experience in Hinode-machi, Vosse states that it is a classic example of Japanese protest movements that make use of: a broad variety of social, political, and legal means in order to achieve their objective, but finally lost their battle because certain decisions…had been made by government offices long before the residents were aware of it, and involved large amounts of financial incentives for the locality. (Vosse 2000:150) In examining the activities of the Nature Conservation Society of Japan (NACSJ), one of the biggest environmental groups in Japan, Vosse argues that it has had some success in recent years in convincing government bodies to reconsider policies (on biodiversity) but as yet had failed to meet its full potential and continues to pursue rather modest goals and objectives (Vosse 2000:150). NACS-J is an example of a nationally organized NGO and it has recently sought to increase its effectiveness by working in coalition with other groups. A good example is the attempt to promote legislation to coordinate government nature conservation policy, currently spread across ten laws. NACS-J was part of the large coalition of NGOs that entered into negotiations with the House of Representatives Legislative Bureau on a draft bill on this topic in 2003 (Japan Times, 4 May 2003). NACS-J has also been very active with respect to its opposition to construction of wind farms in the national parks (such as Muroo-Akame-Aoyama National Park in Mie Prefecture). Following NACS-J lobbying, the MoE temporarily postponed its decision to ease regulations on the construction of wind farms in national parks (Japan Times, 30 April 2003).6 At the end of the 1980s and in the very early 1990s, it was possible to argue that— contrary to what might have been expected of a state designated by some as ecologically modern—social movements in Japan were very much on the periphery of institutional power, under-funded, under-supported and disenfranchised (Danaher 2002a; Revell 2003). Today, in the early years of the twenty-first century, social movements, even genuinely voluntary ones, are slowly moving toward a more legitimate status within the political process akin to their counterparts in North


America and Europe. As such, they are starting to constitute a more theoretically justified form of civil society. Theoretical perspectives The patterns of change in Japan’s civil society can be explained with reference to four distinct but perhaps complementary theoretical perspectives—the traditional culturalist view in a modern, more dynamic version, and the more recent institutional statism, social pluralism and social hegemony views. Each of these perspectives implies the existence of a unique transformative dynamic, as well as different sets of barriers, opportunities and growth patterns in relation to Japan’s community organizational sector. To these, we can also add an important environmental dimension, which brings into view causal factors beyond those strictly within society and culture. Environmental theories posit that environmental changes per se, such as increases in the level of environmental damage or risk, may spur reflexive actions in society. Both ecological modernization and risk society perspectives anticipate that environmental damage and risk will heighten the degree of social concern, bringing about a general societal response. However, conflict oriented environmental theories assume that entrenched business and political interests would resist this response, leaving problems unsolved (Schnaiberg and Gould 1994). In the absence of an adequate governmental response, citizens may try to organize themselves and undertake activities designed to raise awareness of and promote actions to tackle environmental concerns. A combination of these social, cultural and environmental theoretical perspectives provides us with good guidance in looking for key factors that explain changes in Japan’s civil society, including its social movements, public sphere, and public attitudes toward the environment. The qualities of Japanese culture have long been debated (Lebra 1976; Befu 2001). As the result of centuries of state conditioning, some culturalists argue, the Japanese hesitate to articulate personal interests. Japanese culture emphasizes conformity and obedience to authority; these values make it difficult for social movements to recruit members from the general public or to obtain the finances needed to exist for a sustained period of time (Mitsuda 1997; Kerr 2001). These cultural traits may in part explain how local communities can become highly concerned about environmental issues and act accordingly, but, once having solved the problem, then deactivate. By this logic, the environmental movements of the 1960s and 1970s remained NIMBY (not in my back yard) and loco-centric (Funabashi 1992). Cultural qualities also affect how a population ‘frames’ a given issue, both in terms of its degree of concern and in determining the need for personal action. As the above indicates, traditional Japanese culture would seem to run counter to the idea of individual efficacy. The theory of cultural politics, however, approaches culture as mutable, as subject to change through conflict, debate and dialogue. In this case, culture is not ‘essentialist’, but still at any given time can hamper or support some emerging new social pattern, such as an active civil society. Culture becomes an element in the dynamic.


The institutional statist view (Schwartz 2003) looks at how a strong interventionist state creates a strict regulatory environment with respect to civil society and how segments of a socially penetrative public administration (say for instance individual ministries like the MoE or METI) mobilize certain public interest organizations to compensate for their weak jurisdictional powers (see Chapter 3). This view implies that a withdrawal of state intervention should precede and stimulate growth in the number of genuinely autonomous community associations. The social pluralist perspective, on the other hand, sees a host of more genuinely citizen-based associations emerging within the public sector in the 1990s. The new NGOs and their activities, this view argues, represent evidence of social modernization. This implies that the ‘number of interest groups, voluntary citizen groups, and other citizeninitiated social actors is thought to be directly proportional to a society’s level of modernity, industrialization and affluence’ (Tsujinaka 2003:84). This view argues directly that the growth of autonomous citizen associations will be proportional to the society’s level of industrialization and affluence, irrespective of state attempts at intervention. The social hegemony view (Broadbent 1998, 2003), in contrast, while recognizing good points in the preceding views, argues that, at least until recently, most Japanese community organizations have not been autonomous associations in the sense used by the Western definition of civil society. Rather, Japanese community organizations have been embedded within external and internal vertical social relationships preventing their emergence as associations in the original sense. The social hegemony view derives from earlier work by ethnographers of Japan (Nakane 1970; Murakami 1984) as well as more recent ethnographic fieldwork (Broadbent 1998; Broadbent and Shinohara 2003). From this perspective it is argued that Japanese communities tend to be dominated by vertical clientelistic ties to conservative patrons. Analogously, Japanese organizations are dominated by senior members. Hence, though association-like organizations may exist in the Japanese community, they only rarely function as associations in the Western sense. In the Western ideal, the term association comes from the verb ‘associate’, meaning that individuals come together around common interests and decide group governance through frank, egalitarian discussion and debate. Japanese community-based organizations and decision-making processes are generally much more concerned with the avoidance of inter-personal rancour and rather seek ‘harmony’ by intuiting and following the will of the senior member. Thus, Japanese organizations and communities are not the breeding-grounds of individualistic democracy implied by social theory. The social hegemony view implies that the emergence of civil society in the Western sense of autonomous associations will depend most directly upon the transformation of community social patterns away from the dominance of vertical relationships. Growth in the sheer number of community organizations, the main indicator of the social pluralist view, may not correlate directly with this emergence. Neither will the withdrawal of state intervention, or conversely the passage of more supportive legislation, directly support this emergence. One potentially influential change, however, considering national factors, is the recent decline of the LDP patron-client machine that has the potential to reduce the flow of


resources (money, jobs and projects) into communities which in the past has supported the conservative vertical social relationships. At the same time, changes in the local social structures, such as the growth of an educated prosperous middle class randomly brought together in new urban neighbourhoods, may also reduce the power of these traditional vertical relationships. Another potentially influential factor from an environmental perspective is the emergence of a risk society in Japan in the 1990s. The concept of a risk society implies public sensitivity to potential environmental dangers associated with high levels of industrialization, including those from distant sources (Beck 1994:5). Environmental risk causes a popular loss of certitude in the benefits of unrestricted industrial modernization, reduces public trust in the official experts/administrators and calls for greater opening up to the decision-making and policy-making processes (Beck 1994:29). Multiple, less controllable, potential risks pervade contemporary high-technology societies like Japan, including nuclear power, global warming and toxic pollution of groundwater. In what Beck calls ‘reflexive modernization’, these risks require that old political habits be questioned and call for new kinds of citizen response, not only concerned with immediate local pollution but also more proactive about ‘distant’ sources of risk. Application of risk society theory would suggest that a new type of popular social movement in Japan, different from the old NIMBY style of the 1960s, would appear in the 1990s. A new political landscape for civil society In 1989, opposition parties won unprecedented control of the Upper House of the Diet. Then in 1993, shattering the LDP’s almost 50-year rule, a coalition of opposition parties won control of the powerful Lower House. This electoral loss marked the end of LDP dominance in Japan and shocked the whole ruling triad (the LDP, economic ministries and big business), as it challenged their institutionalized control of the state. Once in power, the opposition party coalition started important new environmental and civil initiatives. In November 1993, the opposition party ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa passed a revised Basic Environmental Law. This was given further substance by the passage of the 1994 Basic Environmental Plan, which called for a ‘network’ style of environmental governance, based on the joint efforts of government, citizens, NGOs and business.7 These political victories set in train a diverse array of liberalizing trends throughout the society, including an upsurge of voluntary associations and activities (Takeuchi 1998; Schwartz and Pharr 2003). In 1994, the LDP regained control of the Lower House, but at an odd price—a coalition government with its old enemy, the Japan Socialist Party. To cement the coalition, the LDP gave the prime minister’s position to the leader of the Japan Socialist Party, Tomiichi Murayama (1994–1996), but retained most of the rest of the cabinet positions. What brought about this political earthquake? The end of the Cold War around 1990 reshaped the international arena and sent shock waves through Japanese domestic politics. In the same period Japan, having reached the intoxicating peak of its drive for prosperity, suddenly suffered the collapse of this ‘bubble’ economy.


Then followed over a decade of economic stagnation, financial crisis, corporate bankruptcies and growing unemployment (Kingston 2001; Maswood et al. 2003). The result was an opening up of political space for the emergence of new nonsocialist opposition parties, a host of which multiplied in the political arena. Meanwhile, the government proved unable to make the ‘structural’ reforms demanded by Western economists—for instance by letting banks owning huge bad debts go bankrupt. Such a move would have undercut the very foundations of the Japanese economic system of mutual dependency (Kingston 2001). Instead, the LDP (actually influential factions within it), in conjunction with some powerful ministries and construction companies, embarked upon a massive programme of deficit spending in hopes of stimulating the economy. Much of this spending went into the construction of huge public works projects, such as new roads, harbours, dams and tunnels. Other monies went to subsidize the construction of new hotels and office buildings. In this way, after a few years, the Japanese government acquired the highest levels of national deficit (relative to GNP) among the OECD nations. If invested productively, this debt may have been justifiable. Unfortunately, many of these projects, being contracted at exorbitant rates due to a corrupt bidding system, and in any case mainly intended to keep companies and workers employed for the short term, had only marginal public utility (see Chapter 7 for further discussion). In the mid-1990s, a number of factors converged to spur further popular opposition to the dominant triad. As the economic recession continued so the fortunes of the LDP continued to diminish (Katz 2001; Kingston 2001). In addition, faced with the onslaught of new public projects of dubious worth, citizens began to increasingly voice concerns about why it was necessary for their natural surroundings to be sacrificed at such a rate (see Chapter 7). Then in 1995, a huge earthquake levelled large sections of Kobe, one of Japan’s major cities, killing thousands of people and rendering tens of thousands homeless. The government failed to deliver the needed help in a timely manner, fumbling its rescue response for the victims. Instead, the earthquake victims had to rely on the services of the many volunteers who poured in to help. This stark contrast in aid greatly strengthened popular support for and legitimacy of non-governmental, non-profit volunteer organizations (Yamaoka 1998; Yamauchi 1998; Bestor 1999). Moreover, from the mid-1990s on, the results of the ‘ticking time bomb’ of buried and seeping toxic waste, inadequately covered in the 1970s pollution reforms, began to show up publicly. Public anxiety about toxic waste, including radioactive waste, continued to grow, and the government’s response did not inspire public confidence (Broadbent 2002a: 331; Danaher 2002a). In response, as mentioned above, Japan witnessed a new surge of protest movements and civil society activism in the 1990s. The national government, even if dominated by an LDP-led coalition, felt a new sense of vulnerability (due to the LDP’s loss of power in 1993). So, the government responded with major policy initiatives, some of which favoured the growth of civil society. These included the decision to host the 1997 Kyoto Conference on global warming, the 1998 Special Non-profit Activities Law or NPO Law (Pekkanen 2000) and the 2001 Information Disclosure Law, working to increase the political effectiveness of the nongovernmental sector (Danaher 2002a; Hirata 2002:1; Maclachlan 2003: 230–231;


Schwartz and Pharr 2003; Tsujinaka 2003:84). The NPO law, while not measurably improving NGOs’ opportunity for tax-exempt status (Deguchi 1998), allowed them to incorporate with reduced bureaucratic oversight. In this way, the NPO law weakened the barriers facing civil society in Japan. With these new favourable conditions, the few existing small special-issue-based environmental groups started to expand and others appeared. These included groups such as the Nature Conservation Society of Japan (NACS-J), the Wild Bird Society of Japan (WBSJ) and WWF Japan, supported by a few thousand members and led by dedicated environmentalists. These groups successfully kept up a ferment of concern and critique, particularly with regard to major development projects (Danaher 2002a). In the 1990s, they and many of the internationally oriented NGOs achieved a number of significant environmental victories8 and were also successful in raising public awareness of several serious risk-based environmental problems. As a result, these NGOs have slowly attained greater legitimacy in Japan and built stronger communication links with government and business-based environmental organizations. They have also become more effective at campaigning on issues of concern through the use of the media and by bringing in academic expertise (Vosse 2000). The interplay of institutions, culture and hegemonic relationships The recent transformative processes in Japanese civil society deserve careful consideration. From one perspective, Pharr (2003:320–321) argues that certain features have characterized the post-war development of civil society in Japan. These include the fact that producer groups tend to dominate, that the sphere outside of the state and market is very narrow (but growing) and that consumer and labour groups are weaker in Japan than those found in other industrialized countries. In addition, political advocacy groups are under-represented and the media establishment works with the political core (the ruling triad) vis-à-vis the political periphery (everyone else). While grassroots social movements have been prominent in many areas including the environment, few have advanced to become professional public interest groups and the number of international NGOs is surprisingly small. Above all, the symbiotic relationship between an activist state and civil society has worked to mould (but not suppress) virtually all activities of the generally passive NGO community (Pekkanen 2003). While agreeing with Pharr’s analysis, we would like to highlight a number of points worthy of further consideration. First, the institutional statist view assumes that to a large extent the basic political power resides within the ministerial bureaucracies. However, if we examine the significant changes in policy orientation that occurred in the brief 1993 interregnum when the LDP was totally out of power, we could conclude that such changes may not have been possible otherwise. Hence from the converse perspective this may be indicative of the fact that the interests of the ruling political party (when in power) may be the key determinant of much of the policy output of the bureaucracy. Second, Pharr’s claim that the media always work


with the political core against the social periphery may need to be more naunced. This characterization may arise from an exclusive focus on the press clubs. Certainly, major Japanese newspapers do little investigative reporting on governmental problems. However, research has shown that, concerning social issues such as pollution, the media often send reporters directly to the people and the events (Kabashima and Broadbent 1986). In these cases, the media do not simply parrot the government line. To the contrary, the media may act as a mouthpiece and amplifier for genuine citizen concerns, even in opposition to the interests of the political core. As a result, as demonstrated later in this chapter, the media have sometimes been a crucial resource for the success of protest movements in Japan. The impediments to movement institutionalization are not entirely of the aforementioned structural or institutional statist variety. In some accounts, culture and hegemonic social relations also play important roles. The culturalist view, described above, argues that the internalized values of the Japanese tend to make them refrain from movement activism and, if they do mobilize, to focus on local problems. This loco-centrism and pragmatism result in ordinary people distrusting organizations that claim to serve abstract or idealistic causes, whether domestic or international.9 The social hegemony view, however, places the motivational onus for this loco-centrism less on culture (as internalized motivations) and more on hegemonic vertical social relations (Broadbent 2003). In his fieldwork, Broadbent found oppositional consciousness aplenty among ordinary village folk. Indeed, villagers carried alternative sub-cultures harking back to and romanticizing farmers’ protests during the Meiji or earlier times. The research showed that people’s participation in protest movements was restrained by the negative sanctions imposed upon them through their personal networks, from relatives or friends themselves influenced by or tied to the conservative political machine. This finding casts doubt on the preceding culturalist argument—that internalized values determine behaviour and in the Japanese case strongly inhibit criticism and protest. Plenty of criticism of the government exists around the dinner table (kotatsu). It just has trouble manifesting itself within the public sphere as a new collective identity. The vertical social networks in Japanese communities organize around kinship hierarchies that tend to conform to and convey sanctions from the conservative patron—client political machine. This hierarchy is so powerful in villages, and even in traditional urban neighbourhoods, that it controls much of the public discussion and activity. Faced with disapproval and sanction, people with contrary ideas tend to shut up or only talk with a few friends or immediate family. These vertical networks continue to ‘gnaw away’ (nashikuzushi) at any movement that manages to mobilize, eventually bringing many of them down (Broadbent 1998). To use Japanese terms, this social hegemony has produced an attitude of ‘giving up’ (as the Japanese call it, akirame or shikataganai). Akirame indicates that, despite wanting to change things, one has no realistic option but to give up—except perhaps in times of extreme crisis or widespread protest. Since akirame also includes the (frustrated) desire to change things, it indicates that oppositional ‘embers’ still smoulder in many hearts. Thus the potential for resistance, and hence for genuine citizen-based voluntary associations, remains quite strong, able to burst into flame should vertical hegemonic ties weaken


and grievances intensify. Social hegemony, then, indicates a transformational dynamic, including identity issues, quite different from those suggested by social pluralism, culturalism or institutional statism. The dynamic of social hegemony, coupled with institutional statist and culturalist factors, has produced until recently a ‘truncated’ civil society and public sphere in Japan—giving citizens relatively little opportunity to express the discontent in their hearts publicly, and through public discourse to fashion new collective identities and purposes in the public arena. However, the rise of an urban, well-educated and prosperous middle class has gradually, in a turnabout, begun to ‘gnaw away’ at the popular support base for vertically dominated community organizations and power hierarchies, such as the dominant LDP and its patronage machine. This social change has made it easier for genuine voluntary associations to emerge. As the institutional statism view predicts, the decline of formal barriers has helped the growth and establishment of movements into NGOs. But even without that, by the 1990s, the growth of the urban middle class and its rejection of the traditional machine provided conducive social conditions for the formation of many new types of movements and NGOs. The new movements are receiving ever more professional talent and scientific backing, which strengthens their hand. They have been fairly successful and have worked to sensitize public opinion on various issues (including the anti-nuclear movement), to increase the scope of government policy-making and to offer alternatives to decision-makers (Kanazawa 1996). Their activities have also begun to attract more sustained support from both the media and academia, particular in areas related to global environmental conservation. Media and academics in the growth of civil society Japan has some of the highest newspaper daily circulation rates in the world at around 8–10 million (World Media Handbook 1995; Wong 2001). As mentioned above, a dominant view of journalists in Japan is that they are closely tied into the interest of the ruling triad and that few are concerned with environmental problems (Barrett and Therivel 1991). This situation is compounded by structural problems in the industry related to the role of the press clubs and also advertising. With respect to the former, these clubs have privileged access to government information sources and do not wish to jeopardize this situation by writing critically about environmental issues where the government is involved. On the latter, the big corporations extensively use the media for advertising. Hence, the environmental coverage in the media tends to be self-censoring to avoid controversial issues that could negatively impact on advertising revenues (Hoffman 1996). Bearing in mind these structural constraints, it is important to recognize that, with respect to the coverage of environmental issues, the media have played a decisive role in raising public awareness. In the 1970s: it seemed that every day the national press trumpeted new pollution incidents, protest movements, and court suits. The media generated a collective


awareness of the problem throughout the nation. It helped local groups know that they were not alone in their concerns. (Broadbent 1998:162) For instance, the average space devoted to environmental issues in newspapers grew from 0.4 per cent in 1960 to 2.8 per cent in 1972. News coverage on television quadrupled between 1960 and 1970 (Barrett and Therivel 1991). This comprehensive media coverage of environmental issues had the effect of shifting public opinion from one of resistance to the recognition of the dangers of pollution to a situation where it became acceptable to overtly protest. In the 1980s, domestic pollution issues per se seemed to attract less media attention but from 1988–1989 onwards there was increasing coverage of global environmental issues in most major magazines and newspapers. Data from 1984 to 1998 on articles on environmental movements shows a climax in 1992, at the time of UNCED, when there was something like 30 to 40 articles a month. Similar patterns occurred with respect to reporting on general and global environmental issues. For instance, in the Nikkei newspaper alone there were 1,539 articles on the environment and 1,321 on global environmental issues in 1992, compared with 112 and 21 for the same topics respectively in 1988 (Wong 2001: 78). There was then a fall in coverage in the period 1993–1996, followed by renewed media attention focusing on dioxin issues related to waste incinerators and pollution related lawsuits (Vosse 2000:236–237). Increased media coverage continued and a 1998 survey by the Prime Minister’s Office on Global Environmental Issues and Lifestyles revealed that nearly 90 per cent of respondents obtained information on environmental issues from the television, 75 per cent from the newspapers, 14.6 per cent from the radio and 24.3 per cent from books.10 It is clear that the media are playing an important role in increasing awareness and changing public attitudes in relation to the environment. The Japanese academic community is, and could be more, influential in shaping public attitudes on the environment. Academics undertake scientific research on environmental issues and participate in the policy-making process at all levels through advisory councils (a privilege not permitted to most environmental groups until recently). Nevertheless, up through the 1980s, on the whole they were: bound by a network of loyalties and obligations. Controversial fields of research are frowned upon, so they often remain conformist. Many academics are funded by and have links with industry or government research institutes. As a consequence, independence of thought and inquiry are limited. (Barrett and Therivel 1991:3) Furthermore, it has been argued that Japanese academics have no real or independent position in national or international environmental policy-making, with many preferring to live in the proverbial ivory tower (Wong 2001:74). These factors limit the potentially effective role that academia could play in Japan in popularizing environmental issues and their solutions. There have been many exceptions,


however. Foremost among them in the environmental field stands Professor Jun Ui. While a professor of engineering at the University of Tokyo from 1970 to 1986, Professor Ui hosted his famous monthly ‘Free Forum’ (Jishu Koza). The Forum allowed academics, government officals, movement activists, foreign specialists and many others to present reports on environmental problems and politics in Japan. During this period, other academics played less-visible supporting roles, sometimes as technical experts for local governments or environmental movements (Broadbent 1998). During the 1990s, academic involvement continued and probably increased. The Japan Land and Water Academy, the Japan Ichthyology Association and the Japan Ecological Society, for instance, challenged the MoC with respect to the Nagara Dam (Vosse 2000:99). Academics joined and became advisers for the new environmental NGOs. Also, at international level academics such as Kazuo Sumi from Niigata University and Yoshinori Murai of Sofia University have sought to challenge the Japanese government in relation to major overseas aid projects (Hirata 2002:104). The growing legitimacy of NGOs from the late 1990s increased the likelihood of academic and professional involvement as members and advocates, as evidence in this chapter indicates. All of the above suggest that the total configuration of factors affecting civil society has changed significantly over the past decade. Ecological modernization as cultural politics in Japan Environmental movements and NGOs, to be effective, need to transform not only government policies, but also the environmental ‘common sense’ or field of discourse of a society. Transforming common sense requires, in essence, powerful cultural change, sometimes affecting deep values. That is a form of cultural politics—the clash between coalitions supporting different values and visions about issues such as the environment (Hajer 1995; Rinkevicius 2000b). Through the emergence of new ideas and dialogues, often carried by social movements and NGOs, a transformation occurs. As movements turn into NGOs, and conflicts turn into negotiations, tensions go down and inter-coalition learning can occur. In this way, society can learn new collective goals through less conflictual means (Rinkevicius 2000b: 174). Ecological modernization, if we extend it by the application of neo-institutional theory (DiMaggio and Powell 1991), suggests that discursive changes in how people frame the concept of the environment can be an important causal factor in itself. As a new common sense frame emerges, that is, as protecting the environment becomes more taken for granted, environmental protection can often proceed ‘behind the scenes’, within corporate boardrooms and government bureaucracies, without overt protests or public clashes of interests. While in democratic societies we often think of environmental politics as the ‘hard ball’ clash of clearly opposed interests, cultural politics can involve these more subtle processes as well. Often, in the process of cultural politics, leaders and activists struggle over the definition of issues and the setting of agendas long before they reach widespread public awareness. In the Japanese case, the transformation of general environmental


consciousness, preferences and habits in the 1990s is indicative of a new phase of cultural politics. Up until the 1990s, the general strategy of the ruling triad was to satisfy the public with growing material prosperity while minimizing their active concern about political issues at home and abroad. Local political campaigns by the LDP, for instance, involved mainly going around greeting (aisatsu) local people, reminding them of local benefits brought by the politician, but not taking any stands on national political issues (Thayer 1969; Broadbent 1998). Despite the many barriers to an active and consequential public sphere, however, new framings of problems do sweep through the media and gradually transform public attitudes. For instance, the common conceptualization of ecological problems in Japan has shifted from a focus on ‘public harm’ (kogai) to the ‘environment’ (kankyo), a much wider, systemic perspective (see Chapter 2). Analysis of keywords used in the Asahi Newspaper, for instance, reveals increasing mention of terms such as ‘sustainability’ (Broadbent and Shinohara 2003). Government policy statements, such as the new Environment Basic Law of 1993, also increasingly use such words as ‘sustainability’ when presenting major policy goals. Ecological modernization theory holds that over time the emergence of ideologies and new discourses within public and political arenas will place increasing emphasis on environmental concerns (Hajer 1995; Dryzek 1997). In support of this, some studies have revealed a growing environmental ethic amongst the Japanese public, with the focus of concern shifting from mainly local environmental issues to national and global ones (see Chapter 6). Mitsuda (1997) describes the Japanese public as having high levels of concern about and responsibility towards the local environment. Dunlap et al.’s 1992 Gallup poll found that, while 64 per cent of the Japanese public were highly aware of local environmental problems, their concern for global environmental issues was the lowest amongst developed nations. Only 44 per cent saw global environmental problems as serious (compared with 57 per cent in the US and 64 per cent in the UK) (Dunlap et al. 1992). Mitsuda concludes that: ‘the Japanese environmental attitude is very different from that of citizens in other advanced societies’ (Mitsuda 1997:450). However, more recent polls show a shift toward greater national and global concern in the Japanese public (Chapter 6). These changes fit well with the theory of post-materialism (Inglehart 1997) which argues that, as societies become more prosperous and middle-class, their citizens will place more emphasis on ‘non-material’ values such as generalized environmental preservation. In the World Values Survey conducted by Inglehart, post-materalism is correlated with respondent preferences for environmentalism and participatory politics, as compared to economic growth and state leadership. Figure 5.1 shows that the Japanese public have gradually become more post-material in their value orientations (Broadbent and Shinohara 2003). This change in underlying attitudes mirrors the emergence of a stronger civil society in Japan. The findings in Figure 5.1 are corroborated by other surveys, depicting a steady drop in support for ‘material prosperity’ (mono no yutakasa) and rise to predominance in preference for ‘spiritual prosperity’ (kokoro no yutakasa)—a parallel indicator of post-materialism.11 In addition, Imura (1997) claims that, particularly in the last decade, industry has also changed its discursive practices toward ‘corporate citizenship’ and


Figure 5.1 Increase in post-materialist values in Japan 1981–1997 (source: World Values Survey).

environmental responsibility.12 These trends interact with the intensifying concerns over environmental risks to shape the contemporary environmental discourse. To be maximally politically effective, of course, these broad new preferences have to become political priorities and produce votes for environmental politicians. As mentioned in Chapter 3, this is not happening as yet at the national level.13 However, a new wave of electing environmentally friendly governors has begun, including Governor Yasuo Tanaka of Nagano Prefecture, Governor Akiko Domoto in Chiba Prefecture and Governor Hiroya Masuda in Iwate Prefecture (see Chapter 4). Conclusions From the 1960s onwards, environmentalism in Japan has been characterized by the environmental movement’s mistrust of and constant antagonistic interaction with Japan’s dominant ruling triad and its local branches, as well as the associated dominant social values and structures. Over time, these relationships, and indeed the entire society, have been in gradual transformation. At key stages, such as in 1970, the wave of environmental protest movements proved to be a crucial stimulus to the enactment of innovative environmental legislation. In contrast, throughout the 1980s, no strong national civil society emerged around environmental issues. Coupled with ‘communitarian elite corporatism’ at the top, this societal structure worked to limit the range of government environmental policies. However, in the past decade, the ruling triad’s strategy of resolving crises through compromises, while rigorously excluding citizen involvement, appears less effective. The reasons are threefold. First, as we


have argued, environmental problems and environmental discourses in advanced industrial societies like Japan are becoming increasingly complex. Second, solutions to complex problems increasingly require strong citizen involvement which links to people being capable of organizing (NPO and NGO boom) and being properly informed (freedom of information). Third, long-term economic recession has impacted on the previously tightly knit institutional patterns (undermining the legitimacy of the ruling triad) and created space for civil society with positive implications for participatory environmental governance and Japan’s democracy in general. In the 1990s, public concern moved from the typical NIMBY ‘villagism’ of the 1960s and 1970s to urban-based cosmopolitan and more professional movements voicing strong concerns about the global environment and how Japan can help. In both cases, movements carry and amplify the presence of new ideas and values into broader society. In response to this recent activism, the government and business have gradually become more accommodating (compared to the 1970s)—sometimes supporting and funding the activities of Japanese NGOs—and we begin to notice informal and formal networks emerging between environmentalists, business, academia and government. These patterns of environment related change are part of a bigger process in Japan, that of internationalization and globalization of the entire society. In this process, influenced by the insistent cries of movements and NGOs about sustainability, even Japanese national and local governments and businesses seem to be moving toward somewhat more positive practices concerning their ecological responsibilities. The analysis presented in this chapter has shown that each of the theoretical perspectives on the growth of civil society in Japan—on the societal side, institutional statism, social pluralism and social hegemony, on the environmental side, ecological modernization, risk society and conflict theory—provide only partial explanations. The institutional statist helps to explain how political openings were possible for civil society associated with the LDP’s loss of power and with the 1990s challenges to the legitimacy of the bureaucratic elite. The social pluralism perspective offers interesting insights on the emergence of new values in Japan but the links between industrialization/prosperity and the emergence of strong civil society is somewhat tenuous in the Japanese context (i.e. the lag between the commencement of industrialization and the emergence of new values is difficult to explain). The social hegemony view that civil society is blossoming in the cities among the educated and professional new middle classes is also very illuminating and implies that the traditional hegemonic patterns are breaking down, providing new opportunities for social activism. The risk society thesis offers insights on the influence of public protest against toxic and radioactive pollutants and, beyond that, a new concern about the global environment. Finally, the ecological modernization view on the spread of a new ecological common sense through all classes and sectors is also rather persuasive. All of the above represent important pointers towards the need for more research and detailed investigation on the factors influencing the recent development of Japanese civil society.


Let us end here with a very important question. Are the social movements and environmental groups less marginalized now vis-à-vis the policy-making processes than they were in the past? Vosse (2000:187) argues that most protest movements remain ‘virtually excluded from the political decision-making process and from the government and administrative internal information flow’. Other researchers support this contention: Government mechanisms still do not allow environmental NGOs to play a genuine partnership role in achieving sustainable development and environmental protection responsibly, effectively and fully. Specifically, NGOs have very limited input into decision-making and policy-making and feel that there is little meaningful dialogue between NGOs and government, at the national level. (Danaher 2002:159) A number of reasons for this political alienation have been presented including the lack of trust of citizen action on the part of the elite in Japanese society (elitist superiority matched by citizens’ lack of efficacy), deficiencies on the part of the environmental movements in formulating policy proposals, the movements’ tendencies to be too moderate and conservative, their lack of professionalism, and psychological and attitudinal barriers that work against citizens becoming active and environmentalists becoming political (Vosse 2000:294–298). On the other hand, it is possible to argue as we have in this chapter that the 1990s was a watershed in the development of civil society in Japan and that the levels of dialogue between government, political parties and citizen groups on some issues have been unprecedented (Schwartz 2003:14). Even though the Japanese state remains activist and developmentalist, the new levels of permeability in the boundaries between state and civil society create opportunities for potential partnership in areas such as the environment. Notes 1 There tend to be five main types of environmental protest groups—pollution victims, pressure groups (e.g. neighbourhood associations, housewives associations, labour unions), conservation groups (wildlife protection, cultural preservation), pollution export protest groups and ad hoc militant groups (compensation seeking or antidevelopment) (Iijima 1995). For insights on the links between feminism and environmentalism see Danaher (2003). 2 The new environmental policies of the 1970s had some important positive effects that have lasted to the present day (e.g. tough environmental quality standards). 3 Those that managed to gain non-profit status often had to accept a ministerial retiree on to the board of directors (amakudari—descent from heaven). 4 The concept of ideal type is used here in the technical sociological sense, as developed by Max Weber (Kalberg 1994). The ideal type classifies the main tendencies of a set of observed actual social phenomena, but any single case within


5

6

7

8

9

10 11 12

13

the actual set can differ in some particulars. In this sense, the ideal type is a fuzzy category. A 1998 survey by the Japan Environment Agency found 11 suspected endocrine disrupters in varying levels at 122 of 130 sites. Endocrine disrupters can impair sexual development and immune functions, and cause malignant tumours. They include chemicals used in detergents, resins and plastics. Nonylphenol, found in 76 per cent of the sites, is used in detergents and polystyrene plastic and inhibits testicle growth in fish. The survey also found bisphenol at 68 per cent of sites and iethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), which causes cancer in lab animals and is used to soften plastics, at 55 per cent of the sites (Japan Times 1998). The MoE advisory panel decided on 15 December 2003 to support the installation of wind power plants in national and quasi-national parks, but only when their impact on landscape and the ecosystem is minimal and the public benefits are particularly significant. This a very interesting example of an environment versus environment trade-off, indicative of how sophisticated the environmental discourse has become in Japan. The plan built on earlier forms of Japanese business-government cooperation with the incorporation of greater civic participation. Industrial sector associations had always negotiated the technical provisions of new regulations, including pollution control, for their own industry. The rising levels of education and awareness among Japanese citizens made such cooperation more likely to be effective than in less developed countries. Stopping Mitsubishi’s plans to build a salt plant in a Mexican bay used by grey whales as a nursery; getting the Japanese government to withdraw its support for World Bank funding for the Narmada Dam in India (Broadbent 2002a) and preventing pesticide aid to Cambodia (Hirata 2002). A study of environmental attitudes by Gallup affiliates in 24 countries found that Japanese respondents had low levels of desire to participate in environmental movements, with less than 5 per cent of the population belonging to environmental groups (compared with 11 per cent in the US and 10 per cent in the UK) (Dunlap et al 1992). The survey was undertaken in November 1998 and covered 3,000 people over the age of 20. Survey by Sorifu, reported in Asahi Shimbun 31, Aug. 2002, available at the web page: http://www8.cao.go.jp/survey/h 14/h 14-life/images/zu30.gif. He does cite one study, however, that suggests economic growth and environmental protection are not always viewed as potentially harmonious. A survey of 2,754 companies conducted by the Japan Development Bank in 1992 reported that 64 per cent claim the costs of environmental protection have a large (negative) effect on corporate earnings, while only 20 per cent perceive no cost burdens due to the opportunities for growth in environmental markets. This suggests that, at the beginning of the 1990s, there may have been a counterpositioning of economic and environmental interests within the business community, even if environmental protection is recognized as a necessary expense. There is no national Green party, as in Germany, that gives a consistent political voice to environmental concerns. Even pro-environment national politicians within the LDP, such as Representative Takashi Kosugi, have been known to lose their seats.

88

6 Environmental values and ecological modernization Brendan F.D.Barrett

The mainstream conception of nature in Japan underwent three radical shifts during the century…moving from the universal, hierarchical concept of the Togukawa period, through to social Darwinian ideas of competitive struggle and inevitable progress, to a celebration of a uniquely harmonious, natural nationhood. To put it another way, that conception metamorphosed from nature as place to nature as time to nature as Japanese consciousness itself. (Thomas 2001: x) According to Cohen (2000), researchers involved in examining national pre-paredness for ecological modernization tend to focus on institutional or economic factors, with less attention paid to cultural and knowledge-based potentialities. Yet all environmental action (international, national and local) depends critically upon an underlying knowledge system coupled with strong pro-environmental values exhibited by the citizenry. In this chapter, we apply a typology developed by Cohen (2000) that identifies four environmental knowledge/value orientations (rationalecologism, Prometheanism, Arcadianism and ecocidal mysticism) to the mosaic of contemporary environmental values in Japan drawn from the results of ten international surveys undertaken between 1992 and 2000, perhaps one of the most progressive periods of Japanese environmental policy development. We will attempt to correlate levels of ecological consciousness with the existence of an ecological modernization project in Japan. We will show how recent surveys of environmental knowledge and attitudes tend to indicate that the majority of Japanese exhibit strong ecological consciousness, although their knowledge of the causes and form of environmental problems appears paradoxical. Interpretation of various survey results using a bi-axial dimensional scale indicates that the environmental knowledge orientation in Japan is clustered in a utopian, rustic categorization that is characterized by strong ecological consciousness integrated with numinous-aesthetic knowledge, combined with general pessimism about the role of science and technology in solving environmental problems. This orientation appears to conform to the viewpoint of Midori Aoyagi-Usui who describes Japanese environmental values as falling within a traditional/altruistic category of environmentalism (Aoyagi-Usui et al. 1999).

90 ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES

Conceptual framework The conceptual framework applied in this chapter is based upon literature related to the new environmental paradigm (NEP) and Inglehart’s post-materialism thesis (Inglehart 1977, 1990). The notion of NEP, emerging as a replacement to the contemporary ruling paradigm (human exceptionalism), was first proposed by Pirages and Ehrlich (1974). This was further developed by Dunlap and Van Liere (1978) and Milbraith (1984), who describe the dominant social paradigm as involving belief in progress, technology, materialism, development and separation of humans from nature. NEP, on the other hand, recognizes that humans are part of nature, and that there are limits to physical growth and development. Similarly in 1976, O’Riordan presented two ideological perspectives on environmentalism that differ not only in their attitudes to nature but also in the morality that underlies their actions (O’Riordan 1976). First, there is the ecocentric perspective preaching responsibility for the environment, showing concern for values and ends, calling for low impact technology (but is not anti-technological) and searching for stability through the application of ecological principles (diversity and homeostasis) and natural laws. Second, the technocentric perspective concentrates on technology, shows faith in rationality and efficiency, and stresses the role of professionalism and expertise. The technocentric perspective assumes that people are able to understand and control events for their own purposes. This assurance extends to the exercise of science to ‘manage’ nature and the application of theories and models to manipulate and predict changes in value systems and behaviour. Technocentrism focuses on the utilization of management principles, since its optimism about the continued improvement of the human condition allows it to be rather less troubled about the evaluative significance of its achievements. Technocentrism can be seen as an extension of the ‘dominant social paradigm’ and ecocentrism as a reaction to it or more precisely part of NEP. This essential dichotomy has since proven to be very influential in shaping the early environmental discourses and interpretations of the interactions between the societal and natural systems. Recent reviews of NEP show that it has played a key role in promoting the incorporation of ecological perspectives into a range of social theories (Dunlap 2002; Dunlap et al. 2000). Other researchers have explored the relationship between environmental and other values. Of particular note is the work by Paul Stern of the National Research Council and his colleagues who derive four categories of environmental values defined as biospheric-altruistic, egoistic, openness to change and traditional (conservation) which they find to be significantly correlated with NEP (Stern et al 1993, 1995). Within these frameworks, various survey techniques have been developed and applied to measure the relative extent of the environmental transformation of society (mainly in modern industrialized countries). In the United States, the most refined version of these survey techniques has been applied when carrying out detailed analysis of beliefs associated with NEP (Olsen et al. 1992; Dunlap et al. 2000). Similar comparative studies have been undertaken on public knowledge and environmental politics in Japan and the United States (Pierce et al. 1989). However, the recent work by Cohen (2000) from the ecological modernization perspective challenges the above-mentioned dichotomy by embedding (rather than polarizing)


optimism about science, technology and expertise within ecological consciousness. Cohen’s work is interesting because it provides both latitudinal and longitudinal scales along which to measure environmental knowledge variations. First, he argues that people do not assimilate environmental data in a dispassionate manner but instead are guided by their emotions, values and philosophies about life that can be understood as their ‘ecological consciousness’. Levels of ecological consciousness can vary from weak to strong depending upon the respondents’ willingness to make trade-offs in order to protect the environment, their intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections and outcomes. Strong ecologically conscious individuals are very keen to preserve the integrity of ecosystems and give precedence to lifestyles consistent with responsible environmental stewardship. Second, ecological information is unavoidably ambiguous and people absorb it in different ways depending upon the specific interpretative filter they use to differentiate the consequential from the inconsequential—what can be understood as their ‘epistemological commitment’. While acknowledging that there are virtually limitless knowledge systems that act as environmental information filters, Cohen identifies two broad categories. These are rational-scientific and the numinous-aesthetic, representing a long-standing dichotomy that has shaped human thought since the seventeenth-century scientific revolution. Using these two axial dimensions, a new fourfold typology of environmental knowledge orientations can be developed as shown in Figure 6.1. This typology should not be accepted uncritically. Indeed, any typology brings with it inherent problems on where to draw the boundaries and when explaining how categories blend into each other. Quite clearly, individual typologies are usually an eclectic mix of different ideas (see Pepper 1996). Nevertheless, bearing these limitations in mind, we can understand Cohen’s work as an attempt to open new ground on the comparative analysis of ecological modernization within the context of a set of cultural and knowledge-based criteria. Cohen goes on to apply these typologies to an assessment of the national character of the Netherlands in relation to environmental knowledge. Utilizing a set of questions from the Eurobarometer survey, he examines public perceptions in the Netherlands on the importance of environmental protection, the beneficiaries of science and technology and the relative deference to scientific expertise. Based on this preliminary analysis he concludes that the Dutch display the following characteristics: • robust confidence in the ability of science and technology to ameliorate environmental concerns; • resolute respect for science, tempered by reflexivity on the limits of rational expertise; • long-standing cultural conventions emphasizing tidiness, order and high sanitary standards; and • strong sense of righteousness. Cohen concludes that the Dutch environmental knowledge orientation conforms quite closely to rational-ecologism which is strongly consistent with ecological modernization. Commenting on other similar studies, Cohen argues that the German


Figure 6.1 Typology of environmental knowledge orientations (Cohen 2000).

environmental knowledge orientation tends toward Arcadianism and the United States shows a proclivity toward Prometheanism. He concludes by stating that more detailed research would be required in order to substantiate these intuitive observations. In this chapter, we will seek to apply Cohen’s approach to an analysis of environmental values in Japan. Changing values on the economy versus the environment The Prime Minister’s Office regularly undertakes public opinion surveys on environmental issues. For instance, in 1969 27.4 per cent of those surveyed agreed with the statement, ‘Environmental pollution must absolutely not be allowed.’ By 1975, after the pollution debacle, this had increased to 51 per cent (Imura 2004). Moreover, in a 1988 public opinion survey 25 per cent of respondents indicated that global environmental issues were a serious concern. By 1990 this had risen to 42.4 per cent and by 1993 it was 55.6 per cent.1 In November 1998, from a survey of 3,000 people throughout Japan, nearly 80 per cent indicated that they are concerned about the state of the global environment. A large number (around 50 per cent) also consider that decline in the quality of the natural environment within Japan is one explanation why the national situation is currently getting worse.2 These surveys are very important in that they provide snapshots of the changing environmental values.


Table 6.1 International surveys on environmental attitudes in Japan

In this chapter, we will present results from ten major surveys listed in Table 6.1. While the surveys show that the majority of Japanese are increasingly aware of the need to protect the environment, the results are nuanced and hence careful interpretation is required since contradictions are common, influenced by the temporal circumstances and survey design. One major source of information on environmental attitudes in Japan is the World Values Survey (WVS) organized by Ronald Inglehart at the University of Michigan. These surveys have been implemented in over 23 countries in 1981, 1990–1991, 1995–1996 and most recently in 2000–2001.3 Another major source of information on environmental attitudes is the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), which has undertaken two rounds of survey (1993 and 2000) on public attitudes and behaviour toward the environment in 19 countries.4 Before discussing these surveys, however, let us begin by looking at the findings of a survey at the start of the global environmental boom (as mentioned in Chapter 2) comparing public knowledge and environmental politics in Japan and the United States (Pierce et al. 1989).5 The findings from Japan are summarized in Tables 6.2 and 6.3. The results show that the Japanese public is knowledgeable about environmental issues and support for the NEP in Japan was high (higher than in the United States) at the end of the 1980s. They show that support for the role of science and technology was lower in Japan than in the United States. In explaining Japanese support for the NEP, it is argued that some of the fundamental concepts it contains correspond to long-held fundamental/ traditional beliefs that underpin Japanese culture (perhaps associated with Shinto religious beliefs). Another interesting survey was undertaken at about the same time on Japanese perceptions of wildlife and its conservation (Kellert 1991). Results from this survey reveal that Japanese appreciation of nature is very narrow and idealized,6 primarily focused on single species and individual aspects of the environment. The researchers also argue that the ecological and ethical dimensions seem to be lacking from the Japanese perspective. Turning to the 1990–1991 WVS, Cohen (2000) argues that it provides a useful tool for the analysis of ecological consciousness although narrowly based on the respondents’ willingness to make abstract financial compromises. For instance, in the 1990–1991 survey 42.2 per cent of the Japanese respondents concurred with the statement: ‘I would agree to an increase in taxes if the extra money were used to


Table 6.2 Percentage correct on knowledge of environmental science items among various groups in Japan

Source: Pierce et al. (1989).

prevent environmental damage.’ As shown in Figure 6.2, similar and at times higher responses are found in the ISSP 1992, WVS 1995 and 2000 surveys. These contrast sharply with the findings from the 1997 Global Environment Survey (GOES) and the ISSP 2000 which both show acceptance of higher taxes for environmental reasons dropping well below the 40 per cent mark. Taking this further, Figure 6.3 presents an indication of the willingness of the survey respondents to pay higher prices in order to protect the environment. Clearly in both instances, the GOES survey respondents proved less willing to accept personal costs associated with environmental protection. One reason for this clear distinction relates to the wording of the questions. In WVS 1995 and GOES 1997, for instance, specific mention is made of a ‘20 per cent increase in prices’, which compares with the ISSP wording of ‘much higher’. Clearly, as the degree of abstraction decreases so too does the willingness to pay. The wording with respect to taxation is similar in all of the surveys, which may in part explain why the differences between the GOES and other surveys are not significant on this topic. Nevertheless, we can note that, for the ISSP 1992 and 2000 responses, there is a significant fall in the willingness of the Japanese to pay higher taxes for environmental protection purposes and this could reflect the impact of the continued recession and a general concern that levels of taxation are already high enough. While a total of 57.5 per cent of the respondents to the 1995 WVS indicated a willingness to pay higher taxes in order to protect the environment (much higher than the 1990–1991 WVS survey) and 28.1 per cent showed a propensity to pay up to 20 per cent more for environmentally friendly goods, in comparison to the other countries the willingness of the Japanese is rather low for both tax and environmental goods—placed seventeenth and twenty-third respectively.

Source: Pierce et al. (1989).

Table 6.3 Distribution of Japanese public attitudes on items related to the NEP (in percentages)



Figure 6.2 Willingness to accept tax increases for environmental protection purposes.

The 1992 ISSP survey also revealed a number of interesting insights on Japanese attitudes toward the environment in comparison with predominantly European countries.7 For instance, nearly 52 per cent of Japanese respondents indicated a willingness to pay much higher prices in order to protect the environment (Japan ranked fifth from 21 locations) and 43 per cent indicated that they would be willing to pay much higher taxes (Japan ranked fourth). With respect to willingness to accept a drop in their current standard of living in order to protect the environment, 44 per cent of the Japanese respondents indicated their willingness to do so (ranked seventh). Little change occurred with respect to the willingness of the Japanese to pay for environmental protection in the late 1990s. This view is reinforced by the fact that the Dentsu International Values Surveys (DIVS) in 1997 and 1998 show a marginal fall off from 56 per cent to 55.1 per cent in the response to the statement that ‘it is acceptable for household expenses to increase about 10 per cent for the sake for the environment’. The Japanese response in 1998 was lower than that of all of the Asian countries surveyed (China 69 per cent, South Korea 75 per cent, Thailand 68 per cent, Singapore 66 per cent, Indonesia 67 per cent and India 85 per cent). From a broader perspective, on the issue of economy versus environment the results for the 1995 WVS8 provide some interesting perspectives on the environmental attitudes of the respondents (Dentsu 1999). For instance, only 31.2 per cent of the respondents in Japan felt that ‘protecting the environment should be given priority, even if it causes slower economic growth and some loss of jobs’. This was lower than the other 22 nations covered in the 1995 WVS, with the exception of South Africa.9 As shown in Figure 6.4, the desire to protect the environment appears to have increased in other surveys undertaken in 1996 and


Figure 6.3 Willingness to accept price increases for environmental protection purposes.

1997, before falling off to around 34–36 per cent in the late 1990s, again reflecting perhaps the impact of the on-going and deepening economic recession. The crucial issue here, however, is the fact that, with the exception of the GOES 1997 respondents, the majority of Japanese respondents (ranging from 42–53 per cent) are unable to choose between economic growth and environmental protection. On the negative side, this may be indicative of feelings of uncertainty and scepticism on environment-economy interactions while on the positive side it may be representative of the recognition of the mutual embeddedness of these issues. The findings presented in Figure 6.4 are not particularly illuminating in this respect but may imply the public perception of a declining need for greater environmental protection. The ISSP 2000 survey did, however, include an interesting question on the relationship between economic progress and the environment. Respondents were asked to indicate whether they felt that economic progress in Japan would slow down unless measures were taken to better look after the environment. The positive response to this question was high at 36.7 per cent and only 10.5 per cent disagreed. Environmental values According to the WVS 1995, 94.4 per cent of the respondents agree with the notion that humans should coexist with nature (Japan was third in this ranking), 44 per cent agree that we should emphasize tradition more than high technology (placing Japan tenth under this ranking) and 24.9 per cent agree that humanity has a bright future (placing Japan twentieth). Looking at the results from the ISSP 1992 as presented in Figure 6.5, we also can note some interesting features of the Japanese perspective on the environment, economy and science. The first is the generally negative view of the


Figure 6.4 Economy versus environment.

impact of economic development on the environment and second there is a clear emphasis on the importance of respecting nature as well as the rights of animals. Moreover, NHK Public Opinion Research Division’s analysis of the ISSP 1992 results indicate that the main distinctions with other countries are as follows: • Japanese respondents rank second in the predominance of the perspective that considers that human activity inevitably causes damage to the environment (49.5 per cent). • They rank last with regard to those that hold an optimistic view that scientific progress can solve environmental problems (8 per cent), and highest in the tendency to believe that animals should have the same moral rights as human beings (74.1 per cent). • With respect to knowledge of environmental problems, the Japanese have the most accurate knowledge among the 21 locations surveyed. • Japanese respondents tend to be more concerned about air pollution by automobile exhaust fumes than respondents from other countries. • Many Japanese answer in the affirmative, in principle, about bearing the costs of protecting the environment to a certain extent, but only a few are willing to share the expenses voluntarily.10


Figure 6.5 Japanese views on science, nature and the environment (ISSP 1992).

Comparison of the ISSP 1992 results with those for GOES 1997 and ISSP 2000 reveals considerable and unexpected consistency in most areas with one exception concerning the potential for modern science to solve environmental problems, as shown in Figure 6.6. A possible explanation for this is the fact that the GOES survey used slightly different wording by asking if the respondents felt that modern technology (no mention of science) will solve environmental problems reasonably well. NEP and ecological modernization Results from the various international surveys clearly indicate that the majority of Japanese citizens recognize the significance of environmental problems and the necessity for ordinary citizens to act to protect the environment. Building upon this survey work, Aoyagi-Usui (1999) presents a useful analysis of the ISSP data for Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain, the USA, Ireland and Italy in 1993 and compares the results with a survey undertaken in Japan in 1995 by the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES). Utilizing the NEP approach, Aoyagi-Usui asked the respondents 14 questions and undertook a factor analysis of the results. Figure 6.7 presents the findings from Aoyagi-Usui’s survey applying the environmental knowledge orientations developed by Cohen (2000). Interestingly, the results reinforce Cohen’s distribution of countries based upon intuitive observation


Figure 6.6 Comparison of the environmental values from the ISSP and GOES.

but it is unclear why countries like Italy and Ireland would fall within the ecocidal mysticism quadrant (although both are strong Roman Catholic countries). Interestingly, in commenting upon the environmental attitudes of the Japanese, based on the findings of another comparative survey, this time for the Netherlands, Thailand, the Philippines and Japan, Aoyagi-Usui states, as mentioned earlier, that in Japan environmental values are linked ‘both to traditional and altruistic values’, whereas values in the Netherlands are linked to altruistic values that are contrary to traditional values or—perhaps put another way—that are ecologically modern (Aoyagi-Usui et al. 1999). However, it is appreciated that more rigorous analysis would be required before any firm conclusions can be made. With respect to the shift within Japan towards a more post-materialistic type of society, Aoyagi-Usui analysed returns from the GOES 1997 and classified the respondents as predominately postmaterialist (35 per cent) or mixed materialists/post-materialists (54 per cent) (AoyagiUsui, unpublished) suggesting that Inglehart’s observed shift to a less material-based society is well under way in Japan. Japan compared to other ecologically modern states It may be interesting to begin here by exploring the environmental value systems in two ecologically modern societies—Japan and the Netherlands. Again, the GOES 1997 survey provides an excellent data source for this comparison and in this section we draw on the work of Aoyagi-Usui et al. (1999) which compares the results of surveys undertaken in Japan and the Netherlands between September 1997 and February 1998 by NIES in Japan and the Institute of Social Research at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. The survey included questions based on the ISSP 1992 Environment module, Inglehart’s post-materialist value system as well as from


Figure 6.7 Analysis of NIES data using Cohen’s environmental knowledge orientations.

Schwartz’s general value system. A regression analysis was undertaken of the results in order to estimate the significance of variables for political activity, energy saving and green consumerism in relation to values, education, gender and household income. The results are presented in Table 6.4. In this table, political activity refers to the signing of environmental petitions, participating in environmental groups and demonstrations. Energy saving refers to reductions in energy use for cooking, heating and cooling of households as well as using public transport in preference to cars. Green consumerism relates to the choice of products labelled as environmentally friendly, purchase of recycled materials and so on. The analysis presented in Table 6.4 is very interesting and we can note that only the notion of ‘progress’ as expressed through the environmental values (NEP) items has a negative relationship in the Japanese responses reinforcing the results from other surveys in this chapter identifying a slightly more pessimistic view from Japanese respondents compared to other countries. In analysing the findings, Aoyagi-Usui et al. (1999) argue that political activity in the Netherlands has a very different, more individually oriented (egoistic) context when compared to Japan. Moreover, they argue that the environmental movement in the Netherlands appears to hold ‘counter-traditional’ values but that involvement in green consumerism and energy saving (with their strong links to economic activity) fits closely with traditional Dutch ways of living. Looking at the results for Japan, Aoyagi-Usui et al. (1999) a’rgue that environmental values in Japan run contrary to egoistic values (wealth and authority) as well as to the notions of progress in terms of economic growth and technological development (closer to Cohen’s Arcadianism). Another interesting comparative assessment of Japanese citizens’ interest and concern about the environment was undertaken by Wilhelm Vosse from the


Table 6.4 Regression analysis of value and behaviour—Japan and the Netherlands

Source: Aoyagi et al (1999b). Notes: + means positive significant (>10%) relationship and − means negative significant (

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