Toward Inclusive Global Governance? Japanese Civil Society, the State, and G7/8 Summitry, 2000-2016

Utilizing the examples of three G7/8 summits held in Japan in recent years-the 2000 Kyushu-Okinawa summit, the 2008 Hokkaido-Toyako summit, and the 2016 Ise-Shima summit-I analyze in this article the extent to which the norm of inclusive approach to the participation of civil society in global governance processes has been embraced by subsequent Japanese governments. I propose that the norm of civil society inclusion in global governance processes has not yet taken sufficient hold among Japanese ruling elites, and the extent and the conditions of civil society organization participation in the summits were dictated by the political philosophy of the given prime minister in power, resulting in an inconsistent and contradictory approach to nongovernmental actors.