Civil juries in Okinawa’s past and Japan’s future

Abstract

evidences from 38 Asian countries and a ton of bibliographic references, the book is a great addition to the burgeoning archives of demographic literature. Their analysis to relate the contraceptive-method mix to family-planning programmes, however, is lacking on multiple fronts. With a lengthy discussion on method-choice theories and conceptual frameworks, the study shapes up very structurally, and yet writings in later chapters are in the mould of a narrative analysis. For instance, the eight key points presented in the conclusion have not been included in the analytic structure and exist only as a suggestive corollary to the observations from country-level analysis. Although this is stylistically congruent with the three policy chapters and with the authors’ claim of it being an “explorative study” and “not all-encompassing,” its discord with the first couple of chapters is quite glaring. It is this epistemic dissonance between a structural and a narrative form of analysis that prevents a truly harmonious synthesis. The book is an explorative study; examined exclusively with literary sources, it attempted to find the causal link between contraceptive choice and population policies. To what extent it has succeeded in that pursuit is debatable, but its value as an introductory read is undeniable. Although not groundbreaking in its findings, a comprehensible narrative style and a lucid prose largely devoid of academic jargon make it a preliminary read not just for demographers, but also for a wide array of practitioners and researchers in the fields of population and health studies and science policy, bureaucrats, and policymakers for both state and non-state organizations, and even for a larger audience not directly related to academia.