Japan’s Environmental Pollution Issues: 1950s to 1970s (original) (raw)
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In the 1970s and 1980s, Japan was the leading market known for being an innovator of environmental policy. Other OECD countries found much to emulate from Japan's policies. Two decades later, Japan appears to have lost its innovative edge to other OECD countries. Why has Japan fallen from its position as the global leader? How should Japan regain its reputation? To answer these questions, I will examine possible causes of the rise and fall of Japanese environmental policy by exploring its domestic policy subsystem, the international arena, and the arena where domestic and foreign issues converge or the emerging space, in particular, where sub-national authorities have become increasingly recognised as a direct contributor to global environmental strategies. Each of three approaches-the domestic/foreign divide, interaction, and convergence-represents a partial explanation to these questions. This article suggests that analytical eclecticism is required to fully explain empirical puzzles.
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Although there have been social, political, and environmental mobilizations with grassroots approaches in post-war Japan, these mobilizations have not been effectively transformative to influence state policies, including environmental and energy policies, when thinking about their counterparts in Western nations. The reasons for this include socio-cultural norms embedded in civil society and developmental approaches of the Japanese State. This essay pays attention to the civic approaches in environment-related mobilizations and movements, and highlights the factors that have hindered further mobilizations. It also focuses on environmental civil society organizations in Japan, the Japanese Green Party, nuclear energy-related mobilizations, and closed political opportunities.
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Research Unit "Standard Setting and Environment" at the Science Center Berlin/Forschungsabteilung "Normbildung und Umwelt" am Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fur Sozialforschung, Reichpietschufer 50, D-1000 Berlin 30. Trends of Economic Development in East Asia ed. by W. Klenner
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Social Science Japan Journal, 2004
Studies of global environmental politics consistently point out differences in policy and practice between developed and developing nation-states. The former acknowledge both domestic and global problems of the environment and in recent decades have moved environmental issues toward the center of national action agendas. Changes in public attitudes on the environment constrain leaders, as grass roots organizations and in many states green parties and movements pressure governments. New political institutions, particularly environmental ministries, focus state attention on issues, and because these nations have high levels of economic development, they possess the means to mitigate environmental degradation and take steps toward a sustainable future. In contrast, developing nations tend to lack resources, capable institutions, and civic associations motivated by environmental goals. Notwithstanding the signiªcance of the economic development variable in explaining variations of national environmental policies, other factors have impacts as well-for example, the degree of decentralization in administrative functions, electoral and political party institutions, amount of concentration in environmental agency functions, and character of business-government relations, among others. To the present, the role of these factors has been examined primarily in single or two-country studies, for example Broadbent's treatise on
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The 1992 Earth Summit marked the emergence of a new type of global environmentalism in which nation states increasingly sought to represent themselves as key environmental actors. Since the early 1990s, Japan has attempted to position itself rhetorically as a global environmental leader. This rhetoric must be compared to Japan's international environmental impacts, which are considerable, especially in East and Southeast Asia. Japan's domestic environmental situation is evaluated, and five key areas of international environmental impacts are discussed: official development assistance, foreign direct investment, deforestation, overfishing, and the promotion of high technology. Motivations for Japan's use of global environmentalist rhetoric including its domestic political environment, geopolitical goals, geoeconomic motivations, and the increasing globalization of the Japanese economy are analyzed. The spread of the Japanese model of development is linked to Asia's continuing environmental crises.
International Journal of Japanese Sociology, 2006
Japanese environmental sociology has developed rapidly over the last two decades and has made a significant contribution in the greater Japanese environmental context. This progress, however, has not been adequately conveyed in the English language. This special issue, focusing on environmental governance in Japan, tries to show readers how Japanese sociologists are now tackling environmental problems and to introduce the unique frameworks they have constructed as well. By way of introduction, I will offer a brief history of Japanese environmental sociology and then outline its features with reference to the articles in this issue. Japanese environmental sociology began with the sociological study of 'kogai' or industrial pollution issues. Nobuko Iijima, a pioneer of this relatively new discipline, studied the world-renowned Minamata Disease (see Harutoshi Funabashi's and Reiko Seki's articles herein) in the 1960s. Minamata Disease, which first broke out in Minamata in 1956 and then in Niigata in 1965, was and remains a tragic environmental disaster caused by the Methyl mercury discharged by factories. Thousands of people have suffered. Iijima conducted social research on the pollution victims and found a socially-formed complex of suffering, in which they suffer not only from disease but also from poverty, social discrimination, the collapse of their families and so on. Disease and social distress were not only related, but served to mutually accelerate one another (Iijima, 1984; 1992). Minamata Disease, in Minamata and again in Niigata, attracted the attention of numerous social scientists. Masazumi Harada, a doctor long involved with the Minamata Disease, has recently advocated Minamata Studies which approach the Minamata Disease through a variety of disciplines. Many social scientists think that Minamata was the starting point for environmental sociology.
Japan and the Environment: Industrial Pollution, Biodiversity Loss, and Climate Change
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This chapter outlines Japan’s experience with the three principal environmental challenges of industrial pollution, biodiversity loss and climate change. All three intersect with Japan’s passage through development and post-development and its economic and political globalization. Hence, the chapter shows how Japan’s economic and population transitions have produced environmental change, and it outlines the state’s responses. In conclusion, the chapter will briefly introduce the potential for a depopulating Japan in the 21st century to contribute to global efforts in mitigating environmental damage, and will ask how Japan might lead Asia in establishing an environmentally sustainable pathway into the future.