{"title":"Regulating smoking in Japan: from manners to rules","authors":"Celeste L. Arrington","doi":"10.1017/s1479591424000020","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Opinions vary in Japan on whether smoking is deviant today, but the behavior, once widely accepted, faces increasing regulation. Recent reforms, moving beyond reliance on nonsmokers' tolerance and smokers' etiquette, impose stricter and more detailed rules on smoking, along with penalties for noncompliance. As the Japanese government's promotional materials note, the reforms move “from manners to rules” (<jats:italic>manā kara rūru e</jats:italic>). The evolution of Japan's smoking regulations exemplifies a shift toward more legalistic modes of social control. Historically, Japanese governance relied on non-binding “soft law,” administrative guidance, and societal cooperation. Legalistic governance, in contrast, hinges on formal rules and proceduralized enforcement mechanisms. This article, drawing on twenty-eight interviews and qualitative analysis of policy deliberations, advocacy organization documents, court rulings, and Japanese news coverage, traces <jats:italic>how</jats:italic> societal actors contributed to this legalistic turn. Tobacco control advocates filed lawsuits, pursued voluntary changes through local activities, and provided information subsidies to policymakers while lobbying for local and national reforms. They thereby helped de-normalize smoking and render it regulatable. By uncovering bottom-up drivers of legalistic governance and the strategies through which societal actors influence regulatory style, this paper contributes to scholarship on governance, policy diffusion, and law and social change.","PeriodicalId":51971,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Asian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Asian Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1479591424000020","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"ASIAN STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Opinions vary in Japan on whether smoking is deviant today, but the behavior, once widely accepted, faces increasing regulation. Recent reforms, moving beyond reliance on nonsmokers' tolerance and smokers' etiquette, impose stricter and more detailed rules on smoking, along with penalties for noncompliance. As the Japanese government's promotional materials note, the reforms move “from manners to rules” (manā kara rūru e). The evolution of Japan's smoking regulations exemplifies a shift toward more legalistic modes of social control. Historically, Japanese governance relied on non-binding “soft law,” administrative guidance, and societal cooperation. Legalistic governance, in contrast, hinges on formal rules and proceduralized enforcement mechanisms. This article, drawing on twenty-eight interviews and qualitative analysis of policy deliberations, advocacy organization documents, court rulings, and Japanese news coverage, traces how societal actors contributed to this legalistic turn. Tobacco control advocates filed lawsuits, pursued voluntary changes through local activities, and provided information subsidies to policymakers while lobbying for local and national reforms. They thereby helped de-normalize smoking and render it regulatable. By uncovering bottom-up drivers of legalistic governance and the strategies through which societal actors influence regulatory style, this paper contributes to scholarship on governance, policy diffusion, and law and social change.
期刊介绍:
International Journal of Asian Studies (IJAS) is an interdisciplinary, English-language forum for research in the humanities and social sciences. Its purpose is to foster multi-directional communication among the global Asian studies community. IJAS examines Asia on a regional basis, emphasizing patterns and tendencies that go beyond the borders of individual countries. The editorial committee is particularly interested in interdisciplinary and comparative studies whose arguments are strengthened by rigorous historical analysis. The committee encourages submissions from Asian studies researchers globally, and especially welcomes the opportunity to introduce the work of Asian scholars to an English-language readership.