Introduction

Japan‘s co-operative economy has a sheer size: agricultural co-ops are the world-class organizations ranked as the largest ones in the World Cooperative Monitor while consumer co-ops have 27% of turnover and 71% of membership of their European counterparts affiliated with the EUROCOOP. But co-operatives are operating under fragmented co-operative legislation regulated by different competent ministries. There are more than 10 industry-specific co-operative laws regulated by different ministries. The competent government department‘s approval is required when co-operatives are incorporated, merged or liquidated. There are no legal instruments for workers’ co-ops despite strong campaigning for decades. There is no common public policy and there are no official statistics on co-operatives and co-operatives have no super-structure among them. The evolution of co-operatives adapting to different socio-economic contexts and legal environments over 70 years has resulted in contrasting organizational cultures and political affiliations. The agricultural co-ops grew as the agency for implementing protectionist policy, heavily supported by the government while the consumer co-ops endured small retailers’ anti-co-operative campaigns without any support from the government. The former co-operatives are top-down organizations and support the ruling conservative party while the latter societies are bottom-up organizations and often support the opposition camp. As a result, these co-operatives have little identity among them, nor recognition as a distinguished sector. The Consumer Co-operative Act was amended in a positive direction for the first time in 2007 while the Agricultural Co-operative Act was revised to dismantle their privileges in 2015. Do these legal reforms have an impact on co-operative activities and co-operative identity? This paper starts with a brief history of co-operative legislation. It will explain the institutional framework of agricultural co-operatives (Jas) and the reform of the Agricultural Co-operative Act in 2015. Then, it will do the same for consumer co-ops. Finally, it discusses the characteristics of Japanese co-operative laws in the light of the Principles of European Co-operative Law (PECOL).

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