ABSTRACT
In the chapter on Japan, Yukiko Nishikawa (Doshisha University), explores several ‘puzzling mysteries’ about COVID in Japan: the low number of cases, a lack of strict measures, the remarkable speed of vaccination, and the high percentage of the population inoculated by late 2021. She argues that law and politics helped shape a pragmatic rule-of-law system and that a ‘moralised politics’ in Japan functioned both to enforce the state’s policies and to contain state power during the coronavirus pandemic. In the absence of emergency powers, Japanese society evolved social responses to curb COVID transmission. These included behaviours that bordered on a vigilantism that was locally organised. This local and regional policing was effectively voluntary and has at its core a desire to protect local communities from ‘outsiders’.
