Mediating the Professional and the Amateur: Social Activism in a Post-Union Democracy

Since the fallout of the triple disaster in March 2011, coupled with the government’s pursuit of the reactivation of nuclear plants, Japan has once again become a seedbed for grassroots political activity. Various anti-nuclear rallies and demonstrations are held across Japan, and the largest of them all, the Friday Protest rally in front of the Prime Minister’s Official Residence has been staged more than fifty times. Such contentious activism, especially among Japanese youth, has been quite inconceivable in the country for many years. How should we understand this development in relation to the three decades of relative silence after the end of student movements in the 1970s, which is said to have left a negative legacy by its violent disintegration?  Building on the sociological studies of the protest cycles, this paper explores the concept of “abeyance” and demonstrates the working of “mediators” as key actors for social movement continuity in a post-union democracy.