ABSTRACT
We began writing this book with two goals in mind. First, we felt that we had both an opportunity and an obligation to enhance scholarly knowledge of neighborhood associations through analysis and reporting of the results from the NHA Survey. The NHA Survey represented an unparalleled opportunity to increase our empirical knowledge of NHAs across the country. We wanted to distill the results of the Survey in order to provide a solid overview for those interested in gaining a good grasp of exactly what NHAs are and do. Of course, we didn’t imagine we could exhaust the knowledge to be gathered from analyses of the Survey. Still, we felt that, as the first book to be published from the Survey, we could provide a valuable overview of the current situation of Japan’s NHAs. Our second main goal was to advance an argument about how NHAs contribute to governance in Japan. As empirical social scientists, we are particularly interested in causal questions of this type. Accordingly, the chapters of this book have served double duty in advancing both of these agendas.
