Political Competition and Legal Mobilization: Bandwagon Coalitions and Citizen Litigation in Japan.

A collective mobilization of law to push for government transparency created a spike in administrative cases in Japanese courts during the 1990s. Theories of legal mobilization suggest that political minorities use law strategically when majoritarian avenues of political influence are unavailable. During the 1980s and 1990s, bandwagon (ainori) coalitions, which included all but a handful of local assembly members, became common in Japan and limited the ability of the left to use parliamentary channels. Theory would predict that these bandwagon coalitions would spur legal mobilization, but the data available do not support that prediction. Instead, other factors, including national political objectives and movement-building by the Citizen Ombudsman network, drove litigation strategies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]