The rise of a women's human rights epistemic network: Global norms and local education redefining gender politics in Japan

In a country not known for its strong human rights tradition, high representation of women in politics, strong women's movement, or speedy political change, how do we explain the dramatic discursive and institutional changes concerning women's and children's human rights in Japan in the late 1990s? Predominant domestic politics and domestic social movement approaches cannot address why the issues of women's and children's human rights figure on the agenda of both the opposition and ruling parties despite significant interest group opposition and the absence of strong bureaucratic support, and why they suddenly became legitimated after 1995 when their local mobilization started already in the 1970s. I argue that the dramatic changes cannot be understood without referring to the institutionalization of women's human rights norms at the global level and the domestic mobilization of those norms by a local epistemic network in Japan. I combine two theses of globalization—world society theory within the sociological tradition and a transnational advocacy network approach from international relations—and argue that Japan is an “embedded network state,” embedded in global human rights norms which are mobilized by a domestic epistemic network. Four successive world conferences on human rights, population, women, and children between the 1993 and 1996 and the UN Special Rapporteur system provided global redefinitions for five formerly separate and illegitimate movements in Japan: the pill, sexual harassment, comfort women, domestic violence, and child prostitution. However, global discourses alone do not guarantee domestic political change. An emergent women's human rights epistemic network within Japan—made up of feminist nongovernmental organizations, professional associations, academics, and sympathetic politicians—holds the Japanese government accountable for her commitments to global standards. For “discursive accountability politics” to work, however, global norms need to be known locally through “advocacy education.” Since the early 1990s, there has been an explosion of human rights research, training, and educational activities by both the domestic epistemic network and the Japanese government. Global human rights norms have redefined what knowledge is in Japan. At stake are not only a redefinition of Japanese politics but also the remaking of Japanese identities.