How can social movement organizations (CSO) have an impact on policy-making? This paper addresses the role women played / play for CSO engagement in a post-1995 Okinawa. Along a set of four criteria (information politics, symbolic politics, leverage politics, and accountability politics) I trace women’s influence in revitalizing contentious politics in Okinawa, in reshaping its contents and in bringing Okinawa back onto the international political arena. By this, I aim to show how women’s CSO shaped / shape current politics in Okinawa (and Japan) – and where the boundaries of this activism lie.
