Description:
This book examines Japan's postwar consumer protection movement, which, organized largely by housewives, led to the passage of basic consumer protection legislation in 1968. Macmillan points to the importance of activity at the local level, the role of minority parties, the limited utility of the courts, and the place of lawyers and academics in providing access to power.
Review Quotes: Consumer Politics in Postwar Japan is likely to prove a classic study of Japanese policymaking.... Maclachlan's work [is] excellent. It is rigorous and systematic in the tradition of the best social science without doing unnecessary violence to the complexity of political reality.... Specialists will find Maclachlan's book useful, but students at most levels will also be able to read it.--Robin M. LeBlanc "Journal of Japanese Studies"