Gender and Human Rights Politics in Japan

by Chan-Tiberghien, Jennifer

• ISBN13: 9780804750226
• ISBN10: 080475022X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-08-15
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

The main purpose of this book is to revisit prevailing conceptions of the Japanese state--which tend to focus on bureaucratic dominance, party politics, and interest groups--and argue that these institutions cannot explain the extensive legal and political changes concerning women's and children's human rights since the late 1990s. Instead, the author advances a constructivist approach to examine the impact of global human rights norms on Japan. This approach is exceptional in linking gender, children, and minority rights to Japanese norms. This book offers an up-to-date account of the changes since the 1990s. It also explores the issue of universalism versus cultural relativism within human rights and feminist debates. Instead of assuming that traditional Japanese culture is at odds with the individualistic and legalistic orientation of international human rights standards, the book discusses how Japanese civil society as well as state actors grapple with the rise of the individual, the new salience of law in resolving conflicts, the emergence of horizontal networks of cooperation, and the practice of "postnational citizenship."

Author Biography

Jennifer Chan-Tiberghien is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Studies, as well as faculty associate in the Centre for Research in Women’s Studies and Gender Relations and in the Centre for Japanese Research, at the University of British Columbia. She is also the 2004-5 Advanced Research Fellow in the Program on US-Japan Relations of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University.

Table of Contents

1 Redefining Gender and Race in Japan: An Introduction	1	(11)
2 Constructing Japanese State Identity and Interests	12	(8)
3 Global Norms Concerning Women's, Children's, and Minority Rights	20	(19)
4 Policy, Institutional, and Legal Changes Concerning Women's and Children's Human Rights in Japan	39	(14)
5 Grassroots Mobilization: The Pill, Sexual Harassment, Military Sexual Slavery, Domestic Violence, and Child Prostitution	53	(15)
6 Human Rights Education in Japan	68	(27)
7 Japanese Nongovernmental Mobilization at the World Conference against Racism	95	(24)
8 Domestic Mobilization of Global Human Rights Norms: Issue Reframing, Advocacy Education, and Leverage Politics	119	(18)
9 Conclusions: Reconstructing Japanese Political Culture in the Age of Globalization	137	(18)
Appendixes
A. Interviewees,	155	(4)
B. Human Rights Symposia, Seminars, and Training Workshops Attended, September 1999 to December 2001,	159	(4)
Notes	163	(26)
References	189	(12)
Index	201