Legacy and Prospects

As part of University of Buckingham’s 50 Anniversary, we are republishing Dr Tobisawa’s The Influence of Society on Japanese Nuclear Disarmament Policy with a new foreword. Japan is the only country in the world to have been attacked with nuclear weapons. Her anti-nuclear Civil Society Organisations, with their experiences of coping with the fallout of the atom bomb blasts, are passionately committed to their cause. This is an investigation of the influence that Japanese CSOs have on Japanese official policy in respect of nuclear disarmament. Significantly, it focuses on the private diplomacy of CSOs, on the mitigation of inter-state conflicts that lie behind nuclear issues, and on the involvement of governments in social movements of nuclear disarmament. To explain and understand this effectively could lead to the resolution of half-century of failed attempts at nuclear disarmament.