Shimin-syakai no Hō-Shakai-gaku (A Socio-legal Study of the Civil Society: Legal Basis for the Publicness of the Civil Society in Contemporary Japan)

Traditionally in Japan, publicness has tended to be viewed as a state monopoly. However, if we define publicness as “activities to resolve common issues facing society with the goal of achieving a better society,” publicness is by no means a state monopoly. There are numerous examples of such activities in civil society carried out by various social movements, nonprofit organizations, and voluntary associations. The goal of this book is to think about publicness from the perspective of activities undertaken by civil society, clarify the role to be played by and challenges facing the legal system vis-à-vis such public activities, and, in so doing, consider the legal basis for supporting publicness of civil society in contemporary Japan.
 
After establishing a theoretical standpoint from which to examine the publicness of activities undertaken by civil society, Part I of the book considers the role to be played by the legal system with respect to public activities of civil society in the context of several specific legal processes. The topics covered include public interest litigation, community development regulation, restorative justice, and judicial system reform. What emerges from the discussion in Part I is the importance of “deliberation” as a core value of modern publicness and the potential of the legal system to provide various forums for deliberation and to support the public activities of citizens through such forums.
 
Part II discusses the positive legal system related to nonprofit organizations (nonprofit law) that has developed rapidly in Japan since the late 1990s. Significantly, as an overall trend, the nonprofit law that has developed over the past 20 or so years establishes a legal basis for the diverse activities of civil society. However, the evolution of nonprofit law has not been guided solely by the viewpoint of promoting the development of civil society. The discussion has often been complicated and, in some instances, has led to intense conflict between civil society and the state over publicness and public interest. The discussion in this book also provides important insight into the new public interest corporation system reform that is being discussed by the government at the time of publication of this book.
 
The final section, Part III discusses legalization in modern society and the creation and transformation of law based on civil society as foundational theories in the socio-legal studies, which are closely related to the topic of this book. In so doing, Part III points out the iterative relationship wherein the legal system supports public activities of civil society and, at the same time, is transformed by the accumulation of such public activities.
 
Issues related to civil society are of interest to a wide range of disciplines in the social sciences and have been the topic of numerous studies. That said, few studies have focused on the relationship between civil society and the legal system. This book seeks to pioneer a new field of research on Japanese civil society by clarifying the dynamic relationship between civil society and the legal system from the standpoint of socio-legal studies. It is my hope that this book is read by a wide range of readers interested in civil society.
 

(Written by SATO Iwao, Project Professor, Center for Research on Counseling and Support Services / 2023)