ABSTRACT
Contemporary East Asia is marked by new and diversifying interactions between civil society and the state, which merit renewed scholarly attention (Cliff et al. 2018; Morris-Suzuki and Soh 2017; Ogawa 2018). In particular, the present volume focuses on various forms of entanglement and contention in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, as these three countries represent the fully consolidated democracies of the region (Cheng and Chu 2018). The impacts of globalization and the 2008 financial crisis have, in recent years, led to protest movements and political backlashes across the globe (Della Porta 2017; Rodrik 2018). East Asia’s ‘mature’ democracies have witnessed their own share of protests and conflicts. In spring 2014, the Sunflower Movement occupied the parliament in Taiwan for weeks and organized mass demonstrations that forced the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) government to make concessions regarding the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (Ho 2015; Rowen 2015). In South Korea, a mass protest movement and nationwide demonstrations with millions of participants sustained over several months during the period 2016-2017 led to the enforced resignation and impeachment of President Park Geun-Hye (Shin and Moon 2017; Turner et al. 2018). Even in relatively ‘quiet’ Japan, the Fukushima nuclear disaster and security policy initiatives of the current Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) administration have resulted in the emergence of new social movements and mass demonstrations of a magnitude not witnessed in decades (Chiavacci and Obinger 2018b; Machimura and Satō 2016; Oguma 2013).
