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Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien
Publications
February 16, 2021

New DIJ Working Paper on social movements in post-3.11 Japan

In the post-3.11 decade, Japan has seen at least two peaks in social movements: anti-nuclear protests in the year following the triple disaster of 2011 and a second one in 2015 in response to the Diet passing the National Security Act legislation. Together they mark the largest protest wave Japan has seen since the 1970s. In her latest DIJ Working Paper, deputy director Barbara Holthus introduces the findings of a large-scale survey undertaken in 2017 with close to 80,000 participants in the larger Tokyo metropolitan area. Questions focus on understanding who was sympathetic to the 3.11 movement, who was mobilized, and who participated in the protests. The goal was to understand what distinguishes the participants from the non-participants and to understand the role values and political views play in this. Gendered social movements in post-3.11 Japan: A survey report is the first English-language publication to present an overview of the data that was originally published in Japanese in 3.11go no shakai undō: 8mannin no dēta kara wakatta koto (eds. Naoto Higuchi & Mitsuru Matsutani) in 2020. This publication is part of Barbara’s ongoing research project Social movements and gender in post-3.11 Japan.