Consumer Politics in Postwar Japan: The Institutional Boundaries of Citizen Activism

by Patricia L. Maclachlan

Overview

Providing comparisons to the United States and Britain, this book examines Japan's postwar consumer protection movement. Organized largely by and for housewives and spurred by major cases of price gouging and product contamination, the movement led to the passage of basic consumer protection legislation in 1968. Although much of the story concerns the famous "iron triangle" of big business, national bureaucrats, and conservative party politics, Maclachlan takes a broader perspective. She points to the importance of activity at the local level, the role of minority parties, the limited utility of the courts, and the place of lawyers and academics in providing access to power. These mild social strategies have resulted in a significant amount of consumer protection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231123471
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	12/26/2001
Series:	Studies of the East Asian Institute (Columbia Paperback)
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	270
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Lexile:	1640L (what's this?)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Patricia L. Maclachlan is assistant professor of Asian studies and adjunct professor of government with the Center for Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

Table of Contents

Part 1: Japanese Consumer Advocacy from Theoretical, Comparative, and Historical Perspectives
1. Toward a Framework for the Study of Consumer Advocacy
2. Consumer Advocacy in the United States and Britain
3. The Politics of an Emerging Consumer Movement: The Occupation Period
5. The Post-1968 Consumer Protection Policymaking System and the Consumer Movement's Response
4. Consumer Politics Under Early One-Party Dominance: 1955 to the Late 1960s
7. The Right to Safety: The Movement to Oppose the Deregulation of Food Additives
6. The Right to Choose: The Movement to Amend the Antimonopoly Law
9. The Right to Be Heard: The Past, Present, and Future of the Japanese Consumer Movement
8. The Right to Redress: The Movement to Enact a Product Liability Law
Introduction
Part 2: Case Studies: The Impact of Japanese Consumer Advocacy on Policymaking

What People are Saying About This

Sheldon Garon

Superbly researched.... Maclachlan offers a compelling portrait of a Japanese consumer movement that rests on very different assumptions than those underlying its American counterpart.... The result is one of the most thought-provoking accounts of Japanese politics in recent years.

— Sheldon Garon, Princeton University

Editorial Reviews

Consumer Politics in Postwar Japan is likely to prove a classic study of Japanese policymaking.... Maclachlan's work [is] excellent. It is rigorous and systematic in the tradition of the best social science without doing unnecessary violence to the complexity of political reality.... Specialists will find Maclachlan's book useful, but students at most levels will also be able to read it.

Journal of Japanese Studies - Robin M. LeBlanc

Consumer Politics in Postwar Japan is likely to prove a classic study of Japanese policymaking.... Maclachlan's work [is] excellent. It is rigorous and systematic in the tradition of the best social science without doing unnecessary violence to the complexity of political reality.... Specialists will find Maclachlan's book useful, but students at most levels will also be able to read it.

— Robin M. LeBlanc

Journal of Japanese Studies

Superbly researched...Maclachlan offers a compelling portriat of a Japanese consumer movement that rests on very different assumptions than those underlying its American counterpart...The result is one of the most thought-provoking accounts of Japanese politics in recent years.

Sheldon Garon