The Ties that Bind: Social Fabric and the Mobilization of Environmental Movements in Japan

Abstract

This paper compares twelve social movements, all supporting or opposing environmental and industrialization issues, which occurred in the sixties and seventies in one prefecture in southern Japan, The independent variable is the type of local social fabric they arose within; the dependet variables, their mobilization process and goals. The data was collected through qualitative field work, including interviewing, observation and documents, and later coded into questionnaire form. The local social fabric, associational, mixed, or communal, affected several aspects of their mobilization process: goals, leader and follower motives, rate of success, and relation to dominant elites. In communal movements, the leader had more autonomy in setting goals, and followers were more loyal to him. Such movements were more idealistic. In associational movements, leadere and followers emphasized individualistic and material goals and motives. Elites attempted to coopt communal leaders more, because of the leaders’ more arbitrary power. Communal leaders reisted that if they had strong internalized values. Values penetrate movements through leaders. Communal social fabrics support new social movements in Japan, contrary to the Western experience, where such movements arise in more associational, middleclase fabrics.