The Impact of the NPO Law onForeigners Support Groups in Japan.pdf

The Impact of the NPO Law on Foreigners Support Groups in Japan Apichai W. Shipper Political life in modern Japan is characterized by a strong central government, influential economic elites, and a homogeneous society. 1 Accordingly, much of Japanese behavior and civic activities are a result of state efforts in “molding Japanese minds” through various moral suasion campaigns. Sheldon Garon asserts that the Japanese government directly transforms Japanese people into active participants in its 2 various projects. Robert Pekkanen further argues that the state shapes civil society in Japan by selectively promoting certain civil society organizations and allowing them to expand while regulating others and making it difficult for them to survive or flourish. He points to the existence of few large civil society organizations and numerous small ones. Pekkanen elegantly explains that the Japanese state provides preferential treatment to those civil society organizations that are useful to the state, such as the neighborhood associations, and promotes their growth before it eventually exerts influence over the organizations. In contrast, the Japanese government makes it difficult for those issue-oriented civil society organizations, such as environmental NGOs, to expand, because it fears that these organizations may undermine its power. 3 Despite the impressive increase of civil society organizations in Japan during the past few decades and the passage of the Nonprofit Organizations (NPO) Law in 1998