Resilience for Whom? Philanthropic Power and Social Justice in Japan’s Post-Disaster Governance

This article examines how the Nippon Foundation shapes post-disaster resilience governance in Japan through the articulation of philanthropy, performance, and social justice. Resilience, initially conceived as the capacity of individuals and systems to adapt to adversity, has become a normative paradigm of governance. Within a neoliberal logic, it valorises responsibility, autonomy, and flexibility, while shifting the question of justice towards that of performance. Drawing on the concept of humanitarian governmentality, the article shows how contemporary philanthropy translates the morality of relief into a managerial rationality in which compassion becomes an indicator of effectiveness and solidarity a resource for legitimation. Based on a qualitative monographic analysis of the Nippon Foundation, the research combines the study of public documents produced between 2011 and 2024 (reports, speeches, evaluations, and institutional communications) with semi-structured interviews conducted with foundation officials and partners. The analysis aims to identify dominant narratives of resilience, justice, and vulnerability, and to understand how they guide beneficiary selection and the definition of humanitarian priorities. By introducing the notion of humanitarian investment, the article conceptualises philanthropy as a financialised moral economy in which benevolence becomes an instrument of governance. It demonstrates that, far from merely funding resilience, the Nippon Foundation produces its meaning and norms, thereby contributing to the moral privatisation of the common good in post-disaster governance.