Japan's Long Environmental Sixties and the Birth of a Green Leviathan

Abstract

Is the ‘1960s' a useful concept for understanding postwar Japanese history and, if so, what kinds of changes resulted and how might we chronologize the period? This article proposes the idea of a ‘long environmental sixties’ in Japan stretching from around 1959 to 1973. The article argues that this period marked important milestones in environmental protest, public opinion, and legislation. By the early 1970s Japan had addressed many of its most pressing industrial pollution problems, in the process placating protest, compensating victims, and establishing an environmental leviathan staffed by hundreds of bureaucrats nationwide. Japan's sixties were a moment of social upheaval, transformation, and new aspirations but, as this article shows, the country's long environmental sixties bequeathed a complex legacy, combining new forms of civic engagement with administrative programs and corporate initiatives to carefully manage the human–environment nexus.

Notes

¹Marwick, Sixties, 5

²Smith, ‘Strange History’, 263.

³Ibid., 277.

⁴Bloch, Historian's Craft, 150, 156.

⁵Ibid., 143.

⁶Smith, ‘Strange History’, 264.

⁷Henri-Irénée Marrou quoted in Stalnaker, ‘Events’, 178.

⁸Varon, et al., ‘Time is an Ocean’, 2.

⁹Ibid.

¹⁰Marwick, Sixties, 5.

¹¹Smith, ‘Strange History’, 264.

¹²For example see Irokawa, Wakamono; Mikami, 1960nendai; and Ono, 60nendai.

¹³Jameson, ‘Periodizing’, 180, 208–209; Heale, ‘Sixties’, 134; Marwick, ‘Cultural Revolution’, 782; Varon, et al., ‘Time is an Ocean’, 1; Oguma, 1968.

¹⁴Although I focus on the national context in this essay, elsewhere (Avenell, ‘From Fearsome Pollution to Fukushima’) I have begun to explore the many transnational and global aspects of environmentalism in contemporary Japan.

¹⁵Marwick dates the Long Sixties as 1958 to 1973–74 (Sixties, 7); For Jameson the Sixties begins in the late 1950s with various Third World independence movements and ends in 1972–74 (‘Periodizing’, 180, 183); Varon, et al. propose a 22-year period from 1954 to 1975 (‘Time is an Ocean’, 5).

¹⁶Marwick, Sixties, 6–7.

¹⁷In ‘Japan's Environmental Regime’, Broadbent notes a similar trajectory in Japan's environmental politics.

¹⁸Snow and Benford, ‘Master Frames’, 133–155.

¹⁹Heale, ‘Sixties’, 148.

²⁰Research by Upham, Law and Social Change and ‘Unplaced Persons', and also George, Minamata, points in a similar direction.

²¹George, Minamata, is the definitive English-language monograph. Also see Tsuru, Political Economy and Walker, Toxic Archipelago for concise treatments.

²²Shimokawa, Kankyōshi, 216, 220; Kanda, et al., Sengoshi, 43; Iijima, Kaiteiban kankyō. In English, George, Minamata; Huddle and Reich, Island of Dreams; Ui, Industrial Pollution; and Walker, Toxic Archipelago.

²³Tsuru, Political Economy, 60; Kanda, et al., Sengoshi nenpyō, 227.

²⁴Kawana, Dokyumento, 407. The growth of television ownership also warrants mention as a key factor in spreading information about pollution and helping to stimulate activism throughout the country. In 1958 black and white television ownership was only 9.3% but by 1962 it had reached 79.4%, due in large part to the imperial wedding in 1959; see Kusaka, Nihon no sengo, 137.

²⁵McKean, Environmental Protest, is the seminal work on these movements.

²⁶On Shizuoka see Avenell, Making, 151–153; Kawana, Dokyumento, 368–370; Tsuru, Political Economy, 61–62; Gresser, et al., Environmental Law, 22; Broadbent, ‘Japan's Environmental Politics’, 113; Iijima, Kankyō, 151; Lewis, ‘Civic Protest’, 274–313; Krauss and Simcock, ‘Citizens’ Movements’, 187–227.

²⁷In 1966 there were 20,000 yearly pollution complaints, climbing to 87,000 by 1973. See Kankyōchō, Kankyō hakusho, Ch. 7, Sect. 1.2.

²⁸See Jūmin Toshokan, Minikomi.

²⁹Miyazaki, Ima, kōkyōsei; Avenell, ‘Regional Egoism’; Michiba, ‘Sen kyūhyaku’; Asahi Jānaru, Sanrizuka.

³⁰These fed into movements and court actions for so-called ‘environmental rights’ (kankyōken) from 1970s: for example the Osaka Airport, the Date Electric Power Plant (Hokkaido), the Buzen Electric Power Plant (Ōita).

³¹Shimokawa, ed., Kankyōshi, 223.

³²Snow and Benford, ‘Framing’, 614.

³³Broadbent, ‘Japan's Environmental Politics’, 121; Weidner, ‘Japanese Environmental Policy’, 516.

³⁴See Pekkanen, Japan's Dual Civil Society, 2006.

³⁵Schreurs, Environmental Politics, 5, 69, 71, 89, 245. Although, as I discuss in the conclusion, alternative environmental activism such as park and river beautification, energy-saving initiatives, organic farming, recycling, and local conservation flourished. Moreover, many Japanese activists turned their attention to Japanese corporate pollution in other Asian countries (See Miyamoto, Ajia no kankyō mondai).

³⁶Tsuru, Political Economy, 119.

³⁷Schreurs, Environmental Politics, 42; and Imura, ‘Japan's Environmental Policy’, 27.

³⁸Shimokawa, Kankyōshi, 232; Kanda et al., Sengoshi, 55, 65, 71.

³⁹‘Not All is Serene’; and Kirk, ‘Students in the Elementary Schools’, 33.

⁴⁰This is not to say the wildlife conservation movement was unimportant. See Knight, ‘The Nature Conservation Movement’, and Havens, Parkscapes (esp. Ch. 5). Also see Danaher, Environmental Politics, for a discussion of the politics of wildlife preservation.

⁴¹Reich, ‘Crisis’, 152.

⁴²Ibid.

⁴³Discussion here is based on analysis of government public opinion surveys 1959–1975. Available at http://www8.cao.go.jp/survey/y-index.html.

⁴⁴Sōrifu, Kankyō eisei ni kansuru, Q67.

⁴⁵Sōrifu, Kōgai ni kansuru, Q1 and Q2. Respondents identified 16 types of pollution.

⁴⁶Sōrifu, Kōgai ni kansuru yoron chōsa 1966, 1971, and 1975.

⁴⁷Kawana, Dokyumento, 400–402.

⁴⁸Ibid., 402–403.

⁴⁹Gorz’s book comprised articles published in the 1960s and 1970s.

⁵⁰Ariyoshi, Fukugō osen.

⁵¹See Ui, Kōgai.

⁵²Ibid., 16. Ui also travelled with Minamata and other pollution victims to the Stockholm conference and participated in the People's Forum with other environmental nongovernmental organizations. See Avenell ‘From Fearsome Pollution to Fukushima’, 265.

⁵³Ibid., 31. See Ui, Gappon.

⁵⁴Tsuru was an economic official in the Katayama administration (1947–1948).

⁵⁵Kawana, Dokyumento, 374–379; Tsuru, Political Economy, 67–68.

⁵⁶Tanaka, Building, 220.

⁵⁷On the governmental response to crisis see Pharr and Badaracco, ‘Coping with Crisis’.

⁵⁸Kawana, Dokyumento, 388

⁵⁹Yamanouchi and Otsubo, ‘Agreements’, 54.

⁶⁰Gresser, Environmental Law, 248.

⁶¹Miyazaki, ‘“Kōkyōsei” to wa’, 63; Miyazaki, Kōkyōsei, 129.

⁶²Shimokawa, Kankyōshi, 229, 287.

⁶³Tōkyōto, Kōgai, 3–4

⁶⁴Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Tokyo Fights, i. During 2010 Mt. Fuji visibility from Tokyo reached a postwar high of 116 days.

⁶⁵Gresser, Environmental Law; Shimokawa, Kankyōshi nenpyō, 215.

⁶⁶Kanda, Sengoshi, 43; Shimokawa, Kankyōshi, 220.

⁶⁷Ishii, 20 seiki, 37; Shimokawa, Kankyōshi, 268.

⁶⁸Imura, ‘Japan’s Environmental Policy’, 55; Tsuru, Political Economy, 62.

⁶⁹Gresser, Environmental Law, 262–263.

⁷⁰Renamed Kankyō hakusho (Environmental White Papers) in 1972; from 2007, Kankyō-junkangata shakai hakusho (White Paper on the Environment and the Recycling Society); and from 2009, Kankyō hakusho - Junkangata shakai hakusho - Seibutsu tayōsei hakusho (White Papers on the Environment, The Recycling Society, and Biodiversity).

⁷¹Kanda, Sengoshi, 64; Shimokawa, Kankyōshi, 287.

⁷²Articles I and IX of the 1967 law.

⁷³Sagami, ‘Environmental Pollution’, 197.

⁷⁴Ibid., 200, 205; Gresser, Environmental Law, 325, 329, 341–342;

⁷⁵Teranishi, et al., ‘Nihon kankyō’, 51.

⁷⁶Gresser, Environmental Law, 246.

⁷⁷See, for example, Hasegawa, Constructing Civil Society in Japan, and Mutoh, ‘The Alternative Livelihood Movement’.

⁷⁸Bess, Light-Green, 3.