On Behalf of the Voiceless and the Weak? Public Policy and the Moral Economies of Animal Welfare in Japan

Over the past few decades, the question of the wellbeing of animals has emerged as a substantial public problem throughout the world. Animal welfare covers a wide scope of topics, ranging from the preservation of wildlife to the ethics of laboratory experiments or the fight against cruelty to companion animals. In a context of growing awareness among the general population, research on these trends and in particular on animal protection movements has demonstrated the decisive role played by moral sentiments and emotions in the mobilization over these issues (Jasper and Nelkin, 1992; Goodwin, Jasper and Polletta, 2001; Traïni, 2011). Such moral concerns should not be seen as exclusive to North American or European countries. In Japan notably, the place of animals within society has also been radically transformed in the post-world war 2 period, following the development of intensive farming and the normalization of meat consumption, the rise in pet ownership since the 1980s and the international controversies regarding whaling and dolphin hunting. Yet, few researches are dealing with animal protection movements and animal welfare policy in a non-Western context. Linking these two research strands, this paper investigates how moral dispositions regarding the relationships between humans and animals have influenced Japan’s public policies. In order to answer this question, I selected several case-studies involving the issue of animal wellbeing:  the drafting and revision of Japan’s Act on Welfare and Management of Animals, the country’s food policy and the situation of animals in disaster. Drawing from the works of social scientists like Norbert Götz (2015) and Didier Fassin (2009), I argue that the concept of moral economy provides a powerful tool to analyze not only the altruistic use of economic resources by civil-society actors but also the political dimension of moral outcries and conflicts. By exploring examples of animal welfare-related policies in Japan from this angle, I aim to highlight the emotional feature of Japanese politics.