1. For the number of NPOs, see 2000 Whitepaper on the National Lifestyle, www5.cao.go.jp/seikatsu/whitepaper/h16/01_zu/zu301090.html (in Japanese; accessed June 25, 2007); for the numbers of volunteers see www.stat.go.jp/data/shakai/2001/kodo/zenkoku/zuhyou/a075.xls (in Japanese; accessed June 25, 2007).Google Scholar

2. Please note that several scholars, perhaps most famously Garon, Sheldon, Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), argue that the embedded relationship between these organizations and the government makes it questionable whether they should “count” as democratic civil society.Google Scholar

3. For more about the distinction between these two types of groups and the importance of the distinction, see Haddad, Mary Alice, Politics and Volunteering in Japan: A Global Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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7. See chart 3-1-7 at www5.cao.go.jp/seikatsu/whitepaper/h16/01_zu/zu301070.html (in Japanese, accessed June 25, 2007).Google Scholar

8. Chifuren [National federation of regional women's organizations], www.chifuren.gr.jp/aisatu.htm (in Japanese; accessed January 22, 2003); Zenkoku rojin kurubu rengokai [Japan federation of senior citizens clubs], www4.ocn.ne.jp/~zenrou (in Japanese; accessed August 22, 2005).Google Scholar

9. Volunteer Fire Department, www.fdma.go.jp/syobodan/whats/data.html; www2.shakyo.or.jp/zenminjiren/outline/index.html (in Japanese, accessed August 24, 2005).Google Scholar

10. Co-op, “For a Better Tomorrow 2004,” English version, p. 4. www.co-op.or.jp/jccu/English_here/publications/pdf/better_2004.pdf. For more on the consumer movement, see LeBlanc, Robin M., Bicycle Citizens: The Political World of the Japanese Housewife (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), and Maclachlan, Patricia L., Consumer Politics in Postwar Japan: The Institutional Boundaries of Citizen Activism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002).Google Scholar

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18. See Krauss, Ellis S., Rohlen, Thomas P., and Steinhoff, Patricia G., eds., Conflict in Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984); LeBlanc, , Bicycle Citizens ; and Upham, Frank K., Law and Social Change in Postwar Japan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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21. Putnam's book is concerned with social capital rather than civil society. However, the items he mentions as contributing to a declining social capital in the United States are precisely the ones that leaders in traditional civic organizations in Japan identify as challenges to their own membership. This is largely because, as Wuthnow, Loose Connections, points out, the ways in which people participate in the two types of organizations differ. Traditional groups tend to require more frequent face-to-face interactions (usually through weekly meetings), while newer groups can often conduct their business virtually by e-mail or telephone or at infrequent in-person meetings.Google Scholar

22. For a fascinating account of the involvement of women (both housewives and working women) in volunteer organizations, see LeBlanc, , Bicycle Citizens.Google Scholar

23. For an easy time line of minsei'in history, see www2.shakyo.or.jp/zenminjiren/map/index.html (in Japanese; accessed August 10, 2005). For more in-depth history, see Shoumura, , Chiiki fukushishi josetsu; and Mutsuko Takahashi and Raija Hashimoto, “Minsei i'in—Between Public and Private: A Local Network for Community Care in Japan,” International Social Work 40, No. 3 (1997): 303–313.Google Scholar

24. For an easy time line, see www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/saikin/hw/gyousei/03/kekka6.html (in Japanese; accessed August 10, 2005).Google Scholar

25. Ibid.; see also www2.shakyo.or.jp/zenminjiren/map/index.html (8/10/05) (in Japanese; accessed August 10, 2005). Data from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.Google Scholar

26. For more on the importance of legitimizing, funding, and organizing support for community rates of volunteering, see Haddad, Mary Alice, “Community Determinants of Volunteer Participation and the Promotion of Civic Health: The Case of Japan,” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 33 (supplement), No. 3 (2004): 8S–31S.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27. See chart 3-1-7 at www5.cao.go.jp/seikatsu/whitepaper/h16/01_zu/zu301070.html (in Japanese; accessed February 10, 2006).Google Scholar

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30. See www5.cao.go.jp/seikatsu/whitepaper/h16/01_zu/zu301070.html (in Japanese; accessed August 20, 2005). See also www5.cao.go.jp/seikatsu/whitepaper/h16/01_zu/zu301070.html (in Japanese; accessed February 10, 2006).Google Scholar

31. Volunteer Fire Department, www.fdma.go.jp/syobodan/whats/data.html (in Japanese; accessed August 30, 2006).Google Scholar

32. Kashihara in Nara prefecture is one such department. It increased the size of its department by 79 percent between 1990 and 2000. National Public Safety Information, Fire Bureau, National Directory of Fire Chiefs and EMS Administrators, 9th ed. (Stevens Point, WI: SPAN Publishing, 2000); see shoubou, Kindai [Modern firefighting bureau], “Hanshin-awaji daishinsai no kyoukun kara: Teiinzo de chiiki bousai wo ninau” [Shouldering local disaster prevention with more volunteer firefighters because of lessons from the great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake] 38, no. 6 (2000): 46–54.Google Scholar

33. For Japanese Diet staff, see www.shugiin.go.jp/index.nsf/html/index_e_guide.htm (House of Representatives, official website, in English; accessed August 22, 2005). For CRS staff, see CRS Annual Report FY2003, www.loc.gov/crsinfo/CRS03_AnnRpt.pdf (accessed August 22, 2005).Google Scholar

34. Marshall, Jonathan, “Freedom of Information, Legal Mobilization, and the Taxpayer Suit Boom in Japan,” Harvard Program on U.S.-Japan Relations Occasional Paper 04-06 (2004).Google Scholar

35. See http://www.npo-homepage.go.jp/portalsite.html; search for NPOs formed between January 1, 1998, and April 1, 2007 (in Japanese; accessed June 12, 2007).Google Scholar

36. In 2001, the NPO Law was amended to allow tax deductions to certain nonprofits. However, in the last six years, only sixty-three organizations have reached that status; see www.nta.go.jp/category/npo/04/01.htm (in Japanese; accessed June 25, 2007).Google Scholar

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39. Interview, 2002; Silver Network Kashihara, Yuukyuu mizukara kangae kyou ni ikiru akarui choujyu shakai 5 nen ayumi [Eternity: Individual thought, living cooperatively in a bright longevity society—a five-year history] (Kashihara, Japan: Silver Network Kashihara, 1999).Google Scholar

40. Interview, 2002.Google Scholar

41. This finding is supported by Estevez-Abe, Margarita, “State-Society Partnerships in the Japanese Welfare State.” In Schwartz, and Pharr, , The State of Civil Society in Japan; Goodman, Roger, “The ‘Japanese-style Welfare State’ and the Delivery of Personal Social Services.” In Goodman, R., White, G., and Kwong, H.-J., eds., The East Asian Welfare Model: Welfare Orientalism and the State (New York: Routledge, 1998); Takahashi and Hashimoto, “Minsei i'in—Between Public and Private.” Google Scholar

42. See chart 1-1-5, www.impressholdings.com/release/2005/025/20050607_d.pdf (in Japanese; accessed August 11, 2005).Google Scholar

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44. Wuthnow, , Loose Connections.Google Scholar

45. See chart 3-1-5, www5.cao.go.jp/seikatsu/whitepaper/h16/02_fuzuhyo/fz301050.html (in Japanese; accessed August 16, 2005).Google Scholar

46. In a seminal study of Japan, one anthropologist emphasized the importance of daily contact among neighbors as being more important than blood ties; see Nakane, Chie, Japanese Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970). This perception was substantiated by several of my interviewees, who expressed the importance of neighborhood associations when they got old, since their families were far off and unable (or unwilling) to care for them.Google Scholar

47. Interview, 2002.Google Scholar

48. Thirty of the thirty-six volunteers in traditional membership organizations I interviewed in 2001–2002 gave obligation to the community and/or community members as the main reason they joined; this was in contrast to reasons related to individual interests or personal fulfillment, which topped the list of reasons given by volunteers in newer groups.Google Scholar

49. See chart 3-2-2, www5.cao.go.jp/seikatsu/whitepaper/h16/01_zu/zu302020.html (accessed August 16, 2005); and chart 3-2-17, www5.cao.go.jp/seikatsu/whitepaper/h16/01_zu/zu302170.html (accessed August 15, 2005) for the activities of volunteer associations and NPOs.Google Scholar

50. See Haddad, , “Community Determinants,” for more on how these sources of support encourage (or discourage) community participation.Google Scholar