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Leprosy, Legal Mobilization, and the Public Sphere in Japan and South Korea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Celeste L. Arrington Open the ORCID record for Celeste L. Arrington [Opens in a new window]
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Abstract

This article addresses the question of what gets transmitted in cross-national diffusion and why. It does so by analyzing the spread of rights-based activism from Japanese to South Korean leprosy (Hansen's disease) survivors in the 2000s. Previous scholarship would predict extensive diffusion of mobilizing frames and tactics, especially since Korean lawyers learned an effective legal mobilization template while working with Japanese lawyers to win compensation for Korean leprosy survivors mistreated by Japanese colonial authorities before 1945. Yet the form of subsequent activism by Korean leprosy survivors for redress from the Korean government differed from the original Japanese model. This case suggests the need for scope conditions on theories about isomorphism and the agency of brokers. In particular, it draws attention to how the structure of a country's public sphere—and especially its legal profession, news media, and activist sector—affects the feasibility of imported innovations related to activism and legal mobilization.

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Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , September 2014 , pp. 563 - 593
Copyright
© 2014 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

I presented an earlier version of this article at the 2011 annual meeting of the Law and Society Association. I thank the members of the panel, the editors of the Law and Society Review, four anonymous reviewers, Hiroshi Fukurai, Mark Levin, Rachel Stern, Sunil Kim, Henry Farrell, and Paul Wahlbeck for their insightful feedback. I benefited from a fellowship year at the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at Harvard University and a year as the Ginny and Robert Loughlin Founders' Circle Member in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. The George Washington University's Sigur Center for Asian Studies also provided generous research support.

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