Political Dynamics in Contemporary Japan

Rising affluence, social fragmentation, and international participation have wrought subtle but important changes in Japanese politics. Political resources have expanded, political coalitions have become more fluid, and political disputes have become more vigorously contested. In this book six American and six Japanese specialists join to identify and interpret these changes. They start from the administrative reform movement of the 1980s, which magnified the significance of contests...
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Rising affluence, social fragmentation, and international participation have wrought subtle but important changes in Japanese politics. Political resources have expanded, political coalitions have become more fluid, and political disputes have become more vigorously contested. In this book six American and six Japanese specialists join to identify and interpret these changes. They start from the administrative reform movement of the 1980s, which magnified the significance of contests over public and private interests. Several of the authors examine domestic issues profoundly shaped by the reform movement: deregulation of financial services, privatization and its consequences, reorganization within the labor movement, negotiation of land use polices, and regulation of retail trade. Others adopt a broader perspective to illuminate the nation's shifting policy agenda, the changing role of the state and its relation to public interests, and the historical and socioeconomic context of political change. An approach that acknowledges the pervasiveness and importance of continuous bargaining, they maintain, promises to enhance our understanding of the domestic politics of contemporary Japan.