Building Networks from the Outside In: International Movements, Japanese Ngos, and the Kyoto Climate Change Conference

Abstract

Since the late 1980s, there has been a sudden rise in the number of advocacy NGOs in Japan involved in global and transnational environmental issues. This is a surprising development considering the difficult domestic conditions faced by social activists in Japan trying to organize at the national level. To explain these recent changes, this article looks to three international processes: (1) international opportunities, (2) transnational diffusion, and (3) international socialization of state actors. Using the case of Kiko Forum, a Japanese network organization created in 1996 to mobilize support for ambitious greenhouse gas reductions, this article traces how these three processes provided new external resources for activists and altered domestic structures themselves.