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Leading Japan
Shinoda provides an analytical framework for examining the role of the prime minister in Japan's political decision making. He shows that two dimensions of fraction within the government and the ruling party—interagency rivalry and intraparty factions—confront the prime minister whenever a major policy issue needs to be resolved. Despite these obstacles, Shinoda shows that the prime minister can be effective. First, Shinoda identifies the sources of power available to Japanese prime ministers—some from legal authorities and others from informal sources. Because prime ministers must rely on informal sources of power to effectively utilize institutional sources of power, their effectiven...
Koizumi Diplomacy
Japan's policymaking strategy in foreign and defense affairs changed dramatically in 2001 after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took the helm of the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Following a series of bland and short-lived prime ministers, Koizumi's infusion of fresh energy into a tired and opaque party has been compared with Tony Blair's successful revamping of New Labour in the U.K. Koizumi, however, had a weak power base in the party and limited diplomatic experience. How, then, was he able to exercise leadership? Tomohito Shinoda analyzes the prime minister's role in policymaking, focusing on the assistance he receives from the Kantei, or Cabinet Secretariat, the Japanese equiva...
Contemporary Japanese Politics
Decentralized policymaking power in Japan had developed under the reign of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), yet in the1990s, institutional changes fundamentally altered Japan's political landscape. Tomohito Shinoda tracks these developments in the operation of and tensions between Japan's political parties and the public's behavior in elections, as well as in the government's ability to coordinate diverse policy preferences and respond to political crises. The selection of Junichiro Koizumi, an anti-mainstream politician, as prime minister in 2001 initiated a power shift to the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and ended LDP rule. Shinoda details these events and Prime Minister Koizumi's use of them to practice strong policymaking leadership. He also outlines the institutional initiatives introduced by the DPJ government and their impact on policymaking, illustrating the importance of balanced centralized institutions and bureaucratic support.
Contemporary Japanese Politics
Tomohito Shinoda tracks slow yet steady changes in the operation of and tensions between Japan's political parties and the public's behavior in Japanese elections, as well as in the government's ability to coordinate diverse policy preferences and respond to political crises.
Trade Liberalization and APEC
Trade liberalization has swept over developing countries over the past few decades and its results have been argued about for the last few years. This important new book presents useful insights into the experience of APEC countries that have gone through numerous liberalizing reforms in recent times. Students, researchers and readers generally int
The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Politics
"Book Abstract and Keywords: The study of Japanese politics has flourished over the past several decades. This Handbook provides a state-of-the-field overview for students and researchers of Japanese. The volume also serves to introduce Japanese politics to readers less familiar with Japan. In addition, the volume has a theme of "evaluating Japan's democracy." Taken as a whole, the volume provides a positive evaluation of the state of Japan's democracy. The volume is divided into two parts, roughly corresponding to domestic Japanese politics and Japan's international politics. Within the domestic politics part, there are four distinct sections: "Domestic Political Actors and Institutions," c...
The U.S.-Japan Security Alliance
In this book, American and Japanese experts examine to what extent diverging priorities in the U.S.-Japan alliance are real and whether they are not remedied with political and diplomatic leadership and other processes. American and Japanese authors are paired to analyze the same topic, where doing so is possible, for comparing their perspectives.
Critical Readings on the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan
This work collects decades of the best published scholarship in English on the unequivocally most successful political party in Japanese history: the Liberal Democratic Party (the LDP). Governing Japan for almost the entirety of the post-war period, the LDP also has a claim to be the most successful political party in any post-war democracy. Seminal articles in this collection explore the key aspects of the LDP: the party’s evolution since its founding in 1955; key facets of the LDP’s internal organization including factions and koenkai; the LDP in policy-making, including its relationship with the bureaucracy and interest groups, as well as its policy-making committee apparatus; and, party leadership, including the premierships of Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe.
South Korea's Grand Strategy
Since the end of the Cold War, South Korea has taken on a greater role in global affairs. Ramon Pacheco Pardo provides a groundbreaking analysis of South Korea’s foreign policy from its transition to democracy in the late 1980s through the present day, arguing that the country’s approach to the world constitutes a grand strategy. This book examines the key factors and goals that shape South Korea’s long-term strategy, with analysis that brings together its diplomatic, military, economic, and soft-power components. Pacheco Pardo shows that South Korea’s fundamental aim has been to move beyond its past as a “shrimp among whales” and instead attain autonomy and freedom of action. He...
Rethinking Japanese Public Opinion and Security
In this book, Paul Midford engages claims that since 9/11 Japanese public opinion has turned sharply away from pacifism and toward supporting normalization of Japan's military power, in which Japanese troops would fight alongside their American counterparts in various conflicts worldwide. Midford argues that Japanese public opinion has never embraced pacifism. It has, instead, contained significant elements of realism, in that it has acknowledged the utility of military power for defending national territory and independence, but has seen offensive military power as ineffective for promoting other goals—such as suppressing terrorist networks and WMD proliferation, or promoting democracy overseas. Over several decades, these realist attitudes have become more evident as the Japanese state has gradually convinced its public that Tokyo and its military can be trusted with territorial defense, and even with noncombat humanitarian and reconstruction missions overseas. On this basis, says Midford, we should re-conceptualize Japanese public opinion as attitudinal defensive realism.
