Japan

This chapter highlights the 1990s, when civil society captured the imagination of civil society, a process that developed since the early post-World War II period. It was, indeed, around the 1990s that civil society (shimin shakai) and such ideas as volunteering (borantia katsudō), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), non-profit organizations (NPOs), community building (machizukuri), and citizens’ activities (shimin katsudō) became topics of broad scholarly, media, and public attention, both in Japan and among foreign observers of the country. Avenell’s analysis considers long-term historical transformations, international influences, and numerous immediate regulatory, political, and social developments that helped to propel civil society into the limelight.