This excellent study richly evokes the struggle and frustrations of Japanese consumer organizations in the post-World War II era. Activists have confronted an institutionalized bias in favor of producers, and thus their attempts to seek redress have fallen short of members' expectations. However, Patricia Maclachlan notes that there have been encouraging developments since the 1990s indicating that consumer groups are having a significant impact in arousing a consumer/citizen consciousness that bodes well for Japan's civil society.
The first turning point in the struggle to better protect consumers came in 1968 when the government responded to demands for "institutionalization of a comprehensive system of consumer-protection policymaking and administration that accorded consumer advocates opportunities to articulate the consumer interest at the national level."
This gesture was largely symbolic and criticized by activists as mere window dressing designed to obscure the continued bias in favor of producers. Indeed, the emphasis on growth under successive post-World War II governments meant that the national interest was identified with probusiness policies, meaning that the interests of citizens and consumers were consistently given short shrift.