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While the influence of religion on attitudes toward homosexuality has been extensively studied for Abrahamic religions (i.e. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), the relationship between Buddhism, the world fourth-largest religion, and attitudes toward homosexuality as well as research in non-Western countries, in general, has not received much scholarly attention. This paper uses Japan, an East Asian society where it is often said that homosexuality had been historically tolerated because there was no religious authority that condemns same-sex sexuality and Buddhism traditionally tolerated male-male sexual behavior, to examine how Buddhist faiths shape attitudes toward homosexuality. To take the family-centeredness of the religious system in Japan into account, I treat individual followers of a religion and those who only have a household religion as unique groups in the analysis. Using the 2008 Japanese General Social Survey, the analysis shows that active followers of Buddhism, who follow Buddhism individually, are less tolerant of homosexuality than the non-affiliated, whereas nominal followers of Buddhism, who do not practice but follow Buddhism as a household religion, are as tolerant as the non-affiliated, suggesting that male-male sexual relations that were prevalent in the pre-modern Japanese Buddhism should not be seen as a form of homosexuality in the modern sense. The findings also suggest that some scholars may incorrectly claim that Buddhism is tolerant of homosexuality in Japan, because nominal affiliates of Buddhism constitute a large portion of Buddhists in Japan and the number of active affiliates of Buddhism, who are intolerant of homosexuality, is very small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a set of new concepts to define and explain qualitative phase changes in the institutional logic of societies based on the paradigmatic lens that informs the scripts by which institutionalized social action is justified. These legitimation logics are the rooted in what I term the kinship-paradigm (social action justified by the rightful enaction of reciprocal roles), the sovereignty paradigm (social action justified on the basis of posited essential difference), and the systems paradigm (social action justified by the fact of its adherence to standardized processes and protocols). These are expanded, umbrella terms influenced by the kinbased mode of production, tributary mode of production, and capitalist and socialist mode of production concepts from the world-systems school, but attempt to explain an even wider field of action than the exchange-centered existing terms. The applicability, advantages and constraints of the concepts are evaluated in an examination of two of the seminal historical cases of transition from one phase to another; the "modernization" processes of the U.S. and Japan between 1865 and 1945. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the writing on labour market flexibilisation focuses on non-regular employment, this article explores one overlooked aspect, the experiences of increasingly precarious young regular workers. These jobs take the form of standard employment, but workers are often subjected to even more precarious and exploitative working conditions than non-regular workers. Drawing on the case of Japan, this ethnographic study has three aims. First, it clarifies the underlying mechanisms of labour exploitation in precarious regular employment. Second, it illustrates these mechanisms at work by examining the experiences of young workers. Third, it explores the potential of such young workers to disrupt these mechanisms through an individualistic form of collective action. By comparing one successful dispute with seven less successful cases, this paper tries to identify mechanisms that likely to lead precarious workers' collective organizing to gain support from the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Western contexts, immigrant women and women of color typically fall at the bottom of earnings and occupational hierarchies. This pattern occurs at every level of the occupational structure--even immigrant women with college degrees working in professional occupations experience this "double jeopardy," earning less than both native-born women and native-born men. However, some scholars have argued that immigrant women in Japan, one of the most gender unequal countries in the world, avoid the trap of double disadvantage. This paper tests this provocative claim with data collected from over 500 foreign and Japanese workers in 12 large firms. I find that indeed, foreign women earn more than Japanese women, but this advantage is slight. I also show that, despite its reputation for xenophobia, ethnic or foreign nativity penalties are small in comparison to the gender pay gap. The premium that foreign women receive for their unique skills counterbalances the modest ethnic penalties, but barely makes a dent in the sizable gender pay gap that all women experience regardless of ethnicity or nativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The original "social question" of industrial society arose from strife between labor and capital and how the state should respond. As they evolved and encountered historical contingencies, these social tensions produced different power configurations in different countries. Debates have continued to the present about the best theoretical explanations of these configurations. These include class, state, managerial, institutional, rationalchoice and most recently cultural. Bourdieu's work on the field of power synthesizes much of this theoretical development, describing it as a social space that adjudicates among its component bureaucratic, political, economic, cultural, symbolic and social fields. His work remains abstract and assumes the French case, but it opens the potential for flexibly considering different combinations of these factors in empirical historical comparative analysis. This paper adopts this background framework to draw out the theoretical implications of a comparative analysis of political network patterns between labor, capital and the state in three national polities. The network data represents the late 1980s politics of making laborrelevant government policy in the USA, Germany and Japan. Data analysis shows that the three polities all exhibited forms of class division and state mediation, but differed dramatically in the state's role and the relational media of that mediation. The three forms may be labeled business-pluralist (USA), labor-management corporatist (Germany) and state-coordinated corporatist (Japan). Among the relational media, networks of expected reciprocity displayed a massively different presence: in Germany minimal, in the US only among labor organizations, but in Japan, encompassing both labor and business and centered on a managerial (though capital dominated) state. These findings imply that, among the numerous factors contributing to the historical genesis of these distinct formations, distinct cultural value systems shaped the relational doxa: utilitarian individualism (USA), legal universalism (Germany) and hierarchical particularism (Japan). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural landownership in Japan has changed drastically over the last century due to post-World War II land reforms and cultural, political, and economic shifts in the subsequent decades. Initial land reforms shifted the concentrated ownership of land from the wealthy to small-scale peasant farmers. But as Japan has industrialized and become more urbancentered, a substantial amount of land has been left abandoned or unmanaged by descendants of those farmers. This paper analyzes the attitudes of absentee agricultural landowners in Japan to better understand the prevalence of economically rational versus traditional attitudes towards land ownership. We draw on the rural sociological literature on place attachment to hypothesize why some absentee landowners feel a strong tie to the land of their ancestors, while others would be willing to sell for a reasonable price. To test our hypotheses, we use unique survey data obtained from 466 absentee agricultural landowners in Japan, and employ logistic regression modeling to show that attachment to place, gender, age, educational attainment, and usage of land are meaningful predictors of whether landowners hold traditional values, rather than being chiefly economically motivated. We discuss the implications of these findings for the future of sustainable agricultural land management in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on communication in a corporate misconduct which reflects enactments of corporate hegemony. Japanese organizations traditionally have a strong relationship with their employees, and this psychological or mental connection between an organization and employees are recognized as organizational identity. In this paper, transformation of corporate identity is discussed in terms of critical perspective. A Japanese case of the cover-up scandal by Mitsubishi Motors Corp. (MMC) is analyzed, and three aspects of organizational deception are confirmed: offensive, defensive, and collaborative deceptions. There are a couple of important findings. (1) Strong identification with an organization is reified into a corporate brand through ingroup communication. (2) Symbolic process of discourse and knowledge creation discipline MMC workers in concertive control. (3) In corporate hegemony, top management does not directly commit the crime, but collective will made the organizational members to naturally commit misdeeds. (4) Organizational identity is transformed into idolatry, and their organizational communication becomes fetish in corporate hegemony. I conclude that corporate misconduct is neither errors nor mistakes in management but it is a natural consequence of the current management systems, and a center of a corporate misconduct must be considered as transformation of organizational identification and reification of communication ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the determinants of homelessness among day laborers in San'ya, Tokyo's largest yoseba, or day labor ghetto. Yoseba have long served as kakikomidera, or "temples of refuge," for Japan's unemployed. However, under the Heisei Recession since 1990 demand for day laborers has dramatically declined and homelessness has exploded. While the link between the recession and rising homelessness among day laborers has been affirmed by social science researchers in Japan, this paper is the first research effort to empirically explore the factors that determine whether or not an individual day laborer becomes homeless. A binomial logistic regression analysis is performed on survey data from day laborers in San'ya, showing that, contrary to expectation, characteristics such as youth and possession of job-related skills were not found to significantly prevent homelessness. However, day laborers were able to draw on their formal education, past experiences as a day laborer, and interpersonal connections with labor brokers to avoid homelessness. These relationships with employers proved to have the largest impact, suggesting that this form of social capital is the most important asset in avoiding homelessness in Japan's yoseba. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine the possible causes of and the social background behind the recently rising suicide rate among the middle aged or older Japanese male workers, particularly a certain type of suicide called Karo-jisatsu (suicide by overwork). The image of Japan as a country of a suicide preference culture as a method of personal distress resolution is widespread overseas. While such a cultural explanation holds somewhat true, other social structural factors should be taken into consideration before resorting to the historical and cultural explanations. This paper aims to present, based on the existing data and facts, a balanced view of both cultural and social structural explanatory model, analyze the changing situation at Japanese workplaces, and to deepen the understanding of the suicide reality in Japan today. The pressure from long economic recession, a new evaluation system at workplace, and the widening gap between the traditional concept of work and the new reality are some of the reasons behind Karo-jisatsu. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have often seen Confucianism as a cultural source of economic development in East Asia. Such a Confucian explanation is flawed both theoretically and substantively. This paper proposes an alternative cultural approach to East Asia's economic success which is based on an agentic, dynamic view of culture and which stresses the state as an active cultural actor. Economically successful modern states have engaged in what may be called developmental moralization, namely, inculcation into common people of modern economic ethics. The East Asian states, too, have attempted to reach into the cultural lives and the minds of ordinary people to speed up economic development. These attempts culminated in a number of moral, economic campaigns for modernization in which people took direct part. This paper argues that it was primarily through these moral campaigns, through participatory developmental moralization, that the East Asian states have succeeded in transforming traditional culture into modern culture conducive to economic development. To illustrate this, this paper takes up the Local Improvement Movement in Japan and the New Community Movement in Korea. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between religion and subjective well-being has received considerable attention recently in the physical and social sciences. Despite the importance of these studies, they are generally limited to predominantly Judeo-Christian societies, such as the United States. To reveal how these two significant social forces might be associated in other cultures, this paper examines the religion-health connection in Japan. This East Asian nation constitutes a good comparison country because, although it is politically and economically comparable to the U.S., religious practices and other social norms vary significantly. Based on a nationally represented random sample of 2,790 Japanese adults in the 2001 Japanese General Social Survey, this paper reveals positive significant correlations between religious beliefs and membership and global life satisfaction and happiness. Even after controlling for socio-demographic and other secular variables, strong associations remain. By using data from Japan, this paper is a unique example of how the link between religion and well-being can be applied to societies that are not predominantly Christian. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the crucial impact of exogenous factors (e.g. geopolitical context) and the endogenous dynamic between "self" (i.e. Japanese) and "other" (i.e. Koreans) on the nexus of nationhood and citizenship in a historically specific context of distinctive regime types in Japan. The Japanese case provides a formidable opportunity to revisit several prominent theories of nationhood and citizenship, which stipulate a mostly Western, nation-state centered narrative as Japan's development differs from the conventional narrative of nationhood and citizenship. During the imperial period, an authoritarian regime conducted an inclusive policy based on cultural assimilation and broad recognition of heterogeneity. The democratized Japanese nation-state in the aftermath of WWII implemented more exclusionary citizenship. Today, such exclusive practices are called into question by the former colonies, minority groups, and supranational institutions (i.e. U.N.). Based on archival research, this paper seeks to refine some of the dominant assumptions in the literature on nationalism and citizenship. This paper pays special attention to the changing role of the Korean minority in Japan because they are the focus of these changing policies and their mobilization (or lack thereof) informed the transformation of Japanese nationhood, citizenship and immigration policy. By identifying what constraints regime-type places on the types of citizenship available to a society and what social forces create and sustain dissonant voices in debates over nationhood, my study shows how the making of nationhood and citizenship-immigration policies is contingent on exogenous geopolitical factors as well as endogenous contentious relationships between state and non-state actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic that gathers the increasing attention in recent Japan is no doubt the one of declining fertility. This problem is said to be caused mainly by two direct factors: delayed marriage and less kids by married couples. However, the factors that engender those phenomenon are not fully investigated. This paper explores the factors of delayed marriage and the implications of them. Statistical estimation shows that those who are highly educated and who live apart from their parents tend to marry late. These are explained by the possibility that overall economic adversity the young adults in Japan have to face, which is the structural fallout of the seniority system in Japanese society. The usual emphasis concerning the marriage entry and fertility is on gender stratification, which is surely an extremely important factor in sexist society like Japan. However, this paper tries to utilize the another important perspective, namely the problem of stratification by age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper contains two complementary essays, one on the logic of comparison and the fallacies of structural Westernism, the other on the history of Japanese prisons. Usually, when Western social scientists find a non-Western historical case that resembles well-known examples from their own cultures, they tend to analyze the non-Western case by imposing standards of measurement acquired from their prior studies. However, such a method of inquiries often misses the opportunity of theory elaboration that an in-depth explication of non-western cases could uniquely offer. By using the case of Japanese prison history, this paper attempts to show an alternative method of comparative inquiries. The invention of the Japanese correctional institution in the late eighteenth century coincided with the rise of the prison reform movement in Europe and North America. Through a detailed examination of the Japanese case that developed independently without knowledge of western penology, the paper offers a multi-causal and relational analysis of the origin of prisons, distinct from the existing Western models such as Marxist labor control theory. The Japanese case calls for a simultaneous \"re-economizing\" and \"re-politicizing\" of penal history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRUCT In November of 1936, the Geisha Girls Union of Osaka in Japan demanded that their brokers company that they should remove despotic management, abolish extra commissions, and respect the geisha girls? individuality. When the broker company rejected their demands, 60 geisha girls of the union climbed up Mt. Shigi, a holy place for people of Osaka, and confined themselves in the temple at the top of the mountain. Narrating the story of the sit-in strike of the Geisha Girl Union at a holy mountain in the mid of the 1930s? Japan, this paper studies why these geisha girls sat in the holy mountain to go through their demands and what made their strike possible. Drawing lessons from the story, then, this paper discuss how and in what conditions less socially legitimatized workers regarding their rights such as contemporary workers in the service sectors can justify their cause including union organizing. Finally this paper argues that one of the key points in union organizing of less socially legitimatized workers regarding their rights such as service sector workers is socially constructing moral space favorable for the workers in a given local settings through the reference of locally embedded moral codes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are female-dominated paths (which I will call ‘feminine paths’) in education and occupations still chosen by a number of women, especially in a society like Japan? I argue that it is partly because a choice for ‘feminine paths’ is believed to produce advantageous quality (which I call ‘feminine capital’) in the marriage market for women. In this paper, with qualitative analysis on interview comments, I will investigate people’s perception of ‘feminine paths’ in contrast with ‘egalitarian (or male-dominated) paths’, regarding their advantage in the marriage market. The analyses in this paper suggest that ‘feminine paths’ in education and occupations are oftentimes perceived as more advantageous for women’s marital status attainment than ‘egalitarian paths’ because of cultural capital and social capital they entail. However, such ‘advantageous qualities for a marriage’ consists of various and often contradictory elements. Especially, the qualities useful ‘before’ marriage (for a ‘search’ of husband) is different from qualities useful ‘after’ marriage (for a ‘compatibility’ with household responsibilities), and such contradiction suggests why the pursuit of the two courses of status attainment (one through marriage, and the other through occupational attainment) becomes difficult, resulting in a discontinuity in an occupational career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the gap between race, ethnicity, and immigration. I combine Current Population Survey data (1998-2002) and my own family roots from Ireland and Japan to examine this gap through a sociological lens. I specifically look at factors such as time of immigration to the U.S., generation (1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, and 3rd-plus), race, ethnicity, intermarriage, and multiethnic identities. This paper seeks to connect the ?old immigration? with the ?new immigration? and bridge the gap between race and ethnicity in the United States in light of the never-ending-stream of immigration that continually changes how we think about race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ethnic conflicts around the globe have sparked renewed attention to the long-debated, oft rejected concept of national culture (or national character) and its effect on politics. Japan, with its Western institutions and East Asian culture, enhanced by its economic successes, has been one natural locus classicus of this debate. Led by empirical findings about networks of extended reciprocity among political organizations in Japan, this paper considers national culture and other explanations for these findings. The network approach allows empirical distinction among different relational qualities and sanctions that can generate power. This paper distinguishes among tangible-coercive, practice-normative and symbolic-emotive relational exchanges, operationalized (imperfectly) as political support, expected reciprocity, and information, respectively. In Japan, national culture has strong symbolic and normative qualities stressing relational harmony. The findings indicate that distinct practice-normative exchanges stressing harmony ?glue? together the Japanese polity. But in the US, more tangible-instrumental relationships predominate, while in Germany, a norm of role-formalism seems pervasive. The contrasts arise from historical, demographic circumstances as well as specific relational content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to explain puzzling patterns of Internet usage in Japan in the 1990s. Throughout the decade, the growth of access from home computer has been unexpectedly slow whereas access to the Internet from cell phones became popular with service providers garnering over 50 million subscribers from within the national population of 130 million within a timeframe of a few years. This paper first examines the distribution of different access methods across the population. Data from a community survey indicates that the use of personal computers is mainly explained by conventional demographic variables including gender, age, educational attainment, and marital status while the use of web-accessible cell phones is not predicted by these variables. This finding leads us to explore the underlying factors in the popularity of wireless internet access. After reviewing possible explanations, this paper concludes that the success of web-accessible cell phone is a multi-causal story. Evidence suggests that a number of factors including the marketing strategy of cell phone service providers, technical functionality, the process of network externality, and the level of technological literacy all contribute to the diffusion of Internet access via cell phones. These findings support the notion of interpretative flexibility of technological artifacts. That is, the Internet/cell phone/personal computer is not deduced from technology itself because it is an outcome of social negotiation involving both producers and users of a technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration is often assumed to be a key condition leading to ethnic conflict. However, in both immigration studies and ethnic studies there is an inadequate theorization about the relationship between immigration and ethnic conflict, and there is little systematic cross-national comparative evidence on this relationship. This paper is a step toward filling these gaps in the literature. In contrast to the "inevitable hypothesis" that assumes ethnic conflict as a natural outcome of immigration, we propose a "conditional hypothesis" that contends that only under certain conditions will migration and contact generate conflict between groups. These conditions include, but are not limited to, group direct competition for scarce resources, unequal allocation of socioeconomic resources and political power, ethnic and cultural policy based on ethnic/cultural superiority or inferiority, and perceived threats from other groups especially those with a large size and lower-class backgrounds. The historical and contemporary evidence from selected major immigration countries reviewed in this paper seems to give little credence to the inevitable hypothesis but lend substantial support to our conditional hypothesis. It is evident that when these conditions are present, so is ethnic conflict. This is particularly true in the USA, Canada, Australia, and Germany. In contrast, in Japan none of these conditions is present, and hence we see little conflict along ethnic lines. In tandem, the conditional hypothesis and the contact hypothesis suggested by psychologists grasp more completely the role of migration and contact in relation to ethnic conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern education emerged in the long modern century stretching from the mid-eighteenth century through the early twentieth century. Many accounts of modern education assert that its goals, structure, content and functions were essentially identical across all modern societies. This paper argues, to the contrary, that at least six distinctive patterns of modern education emerged, each reflecting their unique temporal and spatial context and the nature to the ideological, economic, and political changes that accompanied their birth and systematization. These patterns are the Prussian, French, English, American, Japanese, and Russian approaches to modern education. The paper first seeks to describe the process of emergence of these respective systems, and then it reflects on some of the implications for institutional theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Japan, homelessness began to increase in the 1980s and rose sharply in the early 1990s. Partly because homelessness is defined narrowly as "sleeping rough," the magnitude of homelessness in Japan seems less pronounced than in other developed countries. Without adopting a broader definition, this paper addresses the reasons behind the growth of homelessness in Japan over the past two decades. By analyzing the ways in which economic globalization interacted with the Japanese political economy in the 1980s, it demonstrates how some of the structural explanations of homelessness in other developed countries can be usefully applied to the Japanese case despite the much narrower conceptualization of homelessness in the country. Specifically, I argue that three broad changes contributed to the growth in homelessness in Japan: namely, 1) a shift from the manufacturing to service economy, 2) urban redevelopment, and 3) state policy shifts toward deregulation and privatization. In Japan these processes occurred in tandem in association with economic globalization in the 1980s while, in many other developed countries, they occurred earlier and on a larger scale. The present paper offers only a preliminary causal analysis of homelessness in Japan. Nevertheless, it suggests that a globalization perspective allows us to transcend definitional complexities and identify broad similar processes responsible for the rise in homelessness in different parts of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the graying Japanese society, primary caregivers for frail elderly people are predominantly their female family members. This paper discusses expected gender roles in family caregiving in relation to social structures and cultural norms in Japanese society. The paper also intends to highlight the constant negotiations that many Japanese people grapple with at the intersections of gender-biased expectations, social structural forces, and cultural norms. To explain this gender dynamic in family caregiving, this paper incorporates a multilevel conceptual framework that includes interactionism, social structures, and cultures. As for the structural component of gender, limited availability of social services and long-term care programs in Japanese society are introduced. The cultural component in this framework entails traditional familial ideology, called ie in Japanese, and norms of filial piety. Both the social structures and cultural norms contribute to reproducing gender roles that predominantly put burdens on women. On the other hand, the rapid social changes that are taking place in today?s Japanese society (e.g., increasing female labor participation) challenge socially constructed gender roles in family caregiving. In response to such social changes, an increasing number of male family members are taking on family caregiving responsibilities. Experiences of such Japanese male caregivers are one example of negotiations at the intersection of social structures, culture, and gender expectations. Successful negotiations can lead us to a new set of social expectations and structures, by which both men and women can more comfortably abide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan is the second largest economic agency worldwide. However, Japanese culture has never permeated the rest of East Asia. This paper investigates the reasons why Japanese cultural products did not penetrate other countries worldwide as well as East Asian countries. It argues cultural, historical as well as economic issues because these backgrounds substantially affect an individual¡¯s choices of foreign programs. This paper also examines the recent trends of Japan¡¯s trial of the expansion of its cultural products. My aim is to figure out whether this new trend is a sign that Japan is attempting to develop and enlarge important roles in the communications field both regionally and globally. Finally, the paper speculates about the impact of the economic depression of Japan on cultural goods production and trade over the last decade and the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]