Despite a long history, the organized field of research on voluntaristics in Japan has emerged only in the past two decades. This article presents a comprehensive review of voluntaristics research in Japan through an overview of past studies and recent hot topics. Nonprofit sector and voluntary action research, now termed voluntaristics (Smith, 2016), is reviewed here using four approaches: organizational, economic, employment, and charitable giving. Discussion of recent changes in the political-legal environment for nonprofit agencies and associations as well as of collaboration among nonprofits, governments, and businesses are presented. The article also covers some of the key topics in recent years, including rising social movements and advocacy, social impact bonds, social capital, and information and communication technologies (ICT) and social media. In discussing the emergence, expansion, and diversification of nonprofit research in Japan, the article makes two main arguments. First, we argue that studies of voluntaristics are rather recent in Japan, still in pursuit of their own originality. Second, we argue that nonprofit research in Japan is constantly looking for an ideal relationship with practice. Research appears to have not fully caught up with the changing landscape of nonprofits in action, and research has not been able to guide practice into the best next steps. The article highlights characteristics of nonprofit sector research in Japan as well as suggesting key questions for future research.

This volume provides the first systematic analysis of the Japanese nonprofit sector ever undertaken. Using a broad range of qualitative and quantitative data, the authors show that Japan has a much larger nonprofit sector than is recognized, even in Japan. Three-quarters of all university students attend nonprofit institutions, significant shares of hospital beds are in nonprofit institutions, and nonprofit agencies are active in the field of social services. Yet in comparative terms the Japanese nonprofit sector lags significantly behind that of other developed economies. One reason for this, the authors argue, is the generally hostile attitude the government has historically taken towards nonprofit organizations in Japan; nonprofit organizations wishing to attain legal status, have to secure the approval of a "competent Ministry," and this is often given begrudgingly or not at all. The nonprofit sector in Japan has only just begun to "flex its muscles" as an independent force in very recent years, and is now on the brink of a new phase in its development.

Civic engagement is a concept of action that has become part of common vocabulary, not only in the West but also in many other regions of the world as well. A growing, yet still small number of scholarly works has recently emerged showing how in Japan citizen activism, volunteering, and social action for a public cause are dev- oping. This present volume is another, and in my view, important addition to the body of knowledge on civic engagement in Japan. The majority of books on related issues in Japan take on the perspective of organized civic life, in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or nonprofit organizations (NPOs): we know quite a number of things about the quantitative trends in these organizations, on their positioning, on their difficulties, and on the institutional contexts in which they have to work. We know relatively little – except for a small number of topical qualitative case studies – on broad issues that relate to civic engagement in Japan, inside or outside these formal organizations. This volume is the first to offer a wide scope of broad variety of forms of civic engagement in contemporary Japan. The volume is quite forceful in counterbalancing oversimplified ideas on an “ideal” civil society in which state, market, and civil society organizations are in- pendent and at best take on oppositional stances.

A look at the voluntary sector in Japan, which has emerged strongly only in recent years.

The voluntary and non-profit sector is an important and emerging feature of Japanese society. It is a response both to the changing nature of this society and to political and social trends that have encouraged the Japanese government to see this sector as a potential provider of public services. It is also part of the emergence of 'civil society' in Japan. This book explores the roots of the societal challenges that voluntary and non-profit organisations face in Japan and evaluates their future impact on Japanese society. Containing contributions from leading researchers, internationally as well as from key practitioners from Japan, this book is essential reading for any student of Japanese studies or the international non-profit sector.