Abstract
This study attempts to answer the question: When do civil society organizations (CSOs) function as a bridge between the informal political sphere and the formal political sphere by changing the political attitudes of their members? To answer this question, I used the Japanese General Social Survey 2003 (JGSS 2003). My main findings involve the effect of the face-to-face interactions that the CSO members have with government officials. The findings suggest that while CSO members without such interactions are no more psychologically politically engaged than non-members, the members with such interactions are. The findings have an empirical importance to those who study Japan since the country is currently undergoing CSO–government relationship reform and the number of CSOs is growing rapidly in the recent years. The study also has a theoretical importance to civil society scholars since this study attempts to unfold the mechanism in which CSOs’ positive effects on the members’ political attitudes are produced.
Résumé
La présente étude aspire à répondre à la question suivante : Quand les organisations de la société civile (OSC) fonctionnent-elles comme une passerelle entre la sphère politique informelle et la sphère politique formelle en modifiant les attitudes politiques de leurs membres ? Pour répondre à cette question, j’ai utilisé l’Étude sociale générale japonaise de 2003 (Japanese General Social Survey 2003—JGSS 2003), Mes principales constatations évoquent l’effet des interactions en face à face que les membres des OSC ont avec les représentants gouvernementaux. Les résultats indiquent que si les membres des OSC ne bénéficiant pas de ces interactions ne sont pas plus impliqués politiquement que les non-membres, au contraire ceux qui y sont exposés le deviennent. Ces éléments ont une importance empirique pour ceux qui étudient le Japon car ce pays a engagé actuellement une réforme de la relation OSC-gouvernement et le nombre des OSC s’est rapidement accru au cours des dernières années. L’étude présente également une importance théorique pour les chercheurs de la société civile car elle s’attache à identifier le mécanisme selon lequel les effets positifs des OSC sur les attitudes politiques des membres interviennnent.
Zusammenfassung
Die vorliegende Studie beschäftigt sich mit der folgenden Frage: Wann fungieren Bürgergesellschaftsorganisationen, indem sie die politischen Einstellungen ihrer Mitglieder ändern, als eine Brücke zwischen dem informellen und formellen politischen Bereich? Zur Beantwortung dieser Frage berief ich mich auf die 2003 durchgeführte japanische allgemeine sozialwissenschaftliche Umfrage, die Japanese General Social Survey 2003 (JGSS 2003). Meine Ergebnisse beziehen sich im Großen und Ganzen auf die Auswirkung persönlicher Interaktionen zwischen den Mitgliedern der Bürgergesellschaftsorganisationen und Regierungsvertretern. Die Ergebnisse weisen darauf hin, dass die Mitglieder der Bürgergesellschaftsorganisationen ohne derartige Kontakte nicht politisch engagierter sind als Nichtmitglieder, während die Mitglieder, die derartige Kontakte pflegen, engagierter sind. Die Ergebnisse sind von empirischer Bedeutung für Personen, die sich mit Japanstudien befassen, denn das Land erlebt derzeit eine Reform der Beziehung zwischen den Bürgergesellschaftsorganisationen und der Regierung, und die Anzahl der Bürgergesellschaftsorganisationen ist in den letzten Jahren rapide gestiegen. Die Studie ist zudem von theoretischer Bedeutung für Gelehrte, die sich mit dem Thema Bürgergesellschaft beschäftigen, da hier versucht wird, den Mechanismus offenzulegen, mit welchem positive Auswirkungen auf die politischen Einstellungen der Mitglieder seitens der Bürgergesellschaftsorganisationen hervorgerufen werden.
Resumen
Este estudio trata de responder a la pregunta: ¿Cuándo funcionan las organizaciones de la sociedad civil (OSC) como puente entre la esfera política informal y la esfera política formal cambiando las actitudes políticas de sus miembros? Para responder a esta pregunta, utilicé la Encuesta Social General Japonesa de 2003 (JGSS 2003). Mis principales hallazgos implican el efecto de las interacciones cara a cara que los miembros de las OSC tienen con funcionarios gubernamentales. Los hallazgos sugieren que mientras que los miembros de las OSC sin dichas interacciones no se comprometen políticamente más que los no miembros, los miembros que tienen dichas interacciones sí lo hacen. Los hallazgos tienen importancia empírica para aquellos que estudian Japón, ya que el país está sufriendo actualmente la reforma de las relaciones entre OSC-gobierno y el número de OSC está creciendo rápidamente en los últimos años. El estudio tiene también importancia teórica para los estudiosos de la sociedad civil, ya que este estudio trata de desvelar el mecanismo por el que se producen efectos positivos de las OSC en las actitudes políticas de los miembros.
摘要
本研究旨在探寻以下问题的答案:在什么时候,民间组织(CSO)会通过改变其成员政治态度而成为了非官方政治与官方政治之间的桥梁?为了回答这个问题,我使用了日本大众社会调查 2003(JGSS 2003)。我的主要研究结果涉及到CSO成员与政府官员之间面对面交流所带来的效果。研究结果显示,就政治参与度而言,与政府官员没有面对面交流的CSO成员与非成员差不多,但与政府官员有交流的CSO成员则明显具有更高的参与度。这个发现能够给研究日本的学者提供很重要的经验支持,因为目前日本民间组织与政府之间的关系正处于大变革时期,CSO组织机构数量在最近几年里增长迅速。该项研究试图揭示CSO对其会员政治态度方面产生积极效果的机制,因而对研究民间组织的学者也具有积极的理论意义。
ملخص
تحاول هذه الدراسة الإجابة على السؤال: متى تعمل منظمات المجتمع المدني(CSOs) كجسر بين مجال النشاط السياسي الغير رسمي ومجال النشاط السياسي الرسمي بتغيير المواقف السياسية لأعضائها؟ للإجابة على هذا السؤال، أنا إستخدمت إستطلاع الرأي الإجتماعي الياباني العام003 (JGSS)2. نتائجي الرئيسية تنطوي على تأثير التفاعلات وجها لوجه التي لدى أعضاء منظمات المجتمع المدني (CSO) مع المسؤولين الحكوميين. تشير النتائج إلى أنه بينما أعضاء منظمات المجتمع المدني(CSO) بدون مثل هذه التفاعلات ليسوا أكثر مشاركة سياسيا˝عن غير الأعضاء، الأعضاء مع مثل هذه التفاعلات أكثرمشاركة سياسيا˝. هذه النتائج لها أهمية عملية تجريبية على أولئك الذين يدرسون اليابان حيث أن البلد يخضع حاليا˝ لمنظمات المجتمع المدني(CSO)- إصلاح علاقة الحكومة وعدد منظمات المجتمع المدني(CSO) ينمو بسرعة في السنوات الأخيرة. الدراسة لديها أيضا˝ أهمية نظرية لعلماء المجتمع المدني منذ حاولت هذه الدراسة أن تكشف آلية “الآثارالإيجابية لمنظمات المجتمع المدني (CSO) على الأعضاء” التي فيها يتم إنتاج مواقف سياسية.
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Notes
This question is by no means a perfect question to measure one’s employment status since, theoretically, those who happened to take a vacation week from their work while being interviewed would be categorized as unemployed. However, this seems not to be the case here. The JGSS asked the respondents’ status at the workplace. The question reads: “Which of the following categories best describes your job?” The respondents were given multiple of options. These were:
-
(1)
Executive of a company or a corporation
-
(2)
Regular employee with no managerial post
-
(3)
Regular employee—Group leader, foreman
-
(4)
Regular employee—Sub-section Head (or equivalent position)—kakaricho
-
(5)
Regular employee—Section Head, manager (or equivalent position)—kacho
-
(6)
Regular employee—Department Head, General Manger (or equivalent position)—bucho
-
(7)
Regular employee—managerial status unknown
-
(8)
Temporary worker, daily worker, part-time temporary worker
-
(9)
Dispatched worker from temporary personnel agency
-
(10)
Self-employed
-
(11)
Family worker
-
(12)
Doing piecework at home
-
(13)
Don’t know
-
(88)
Not applicable
-
(99)
No answer
Those who chose “not applicable” (88) should be those who were unemployed. Therefore, I created a variable and assigned 1 to those who chose (1)–(13) and assigned 0 to those who chose (88). After creating the variable, I compared the two variables on the employment status. Indeed, there was a complete correlation between the two variables (r = 1.0). Therefore, I consider the first variable as an empirically good measurement for the respondents’ employment status here. From the literature, it is expected that this variable has positive effects on the outcome variables.
-
(1)
(1) Health, medical car, and welfare, (2) social education, (3) community development, (4) science, culture, art, and sports, (5) environmental protection, (6) disaster relief, (7) community safety, (8) human rights and peace, (9) international cooperation, (10) gender equality, (11) children’s education, (12) information technology, (13) science technology, (14) economic development, (15) employment opportunity, (16) consumer protection, and (17) support for non-profit organizations.
Religious organizations are not categorized by the NPO law of 1998, since the NPO law stipulates some tax benefits to the organizations. However, the number of religious organizations in Japan is expected to have stayed the same or decreased after the Aum Incidence in 1995 and the subsequent strengthening of regulatory framework.
These include 47 prefectures, 13 government-decreed cities, prefectural capitals, major urban cities, Tokyo special wards, and some cities with population over 100,000, and one township.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my colleagues at the Ohio State University while I was working on this project as a part of my dissertation. I especially would like to thank Dr. Byunwon Woo, Charlie Smith, Dr. Yoon-Ah Oh for the generous time they spent on discussing the project with me. I also would like to thank my committee members: Dr. Anthony Mughan, Dr. William Liddle, and Dr. Craig Jenkins. I also want to give special thanks to Jennifer Tung, Kane Naylor, and JP DuQuette who proofread and provided valuable comments and constructive criticism. The JGSSs analyzed in this study are carried out at the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo under the direction of Ichiro TANIOKA, Machio NITTA, Hiroki SATO and Noriko IWAI with Project Manager, Minae OSAWA. The project is financially assisted by Gakujutsu Frontier Grant from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology for 1999–2003 academic years, and the datasets are complied with cooperation from the SSJ Data Archive, Information Center for Social Sceince Research on Japan, Institute of Social Science, the University of Tokyo.
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Hanada, N. Face-to-Face Interaction with Government Officials and Its Effects on the Political Attitudes on the Civil Society Organizational Members: The Study from Japan. Voluntas 24, 733–756 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-012-9284-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-012-9284-y