ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the 'Tent Plaza' outside the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). It discusses how Tent Plaza activists tried to extend the space of participatory democracy inside the METI building. The Kantei Mae protests produced a space for political expression and community-building in the streets outside the Kantei and the National Diet. The location of the protests explicitly addressed the existing institutions of representative democracy. In the hiroba outside the Kantei, the Diet and the METI building, however, the Metropolitan Coalition Against Nukes (MCAN) protests went beyond merely petitioning the state to enact a more participatory form of democracy. The chapter analyzes some of the theoretical questions that these projects raised about the nature of democracy in Japan today. Sakurai Yoshiko's ultra-conservative vision of democracy is worthy of analysis because it throws into relief the issues at stake in the Kantei Mae protests.
