This Open Access book provides a comprehensive analysis of political reforms in Japan since the 1990s, emphasizing the role of ideas in shaping their goals and outcomes. For more than fifteen years ...following the collapse of Japan’s economic bubble, politicians, business people and academics tackled a range of institutional reforms. The sweeping changes they enacted—covering almost all facets of the public sphere, including elections, public administration, courts and the central bank—fundamentally altered Japanese political processes and policies. Taken together, they arguably represent the final touches of Japan’s political modernization, which had been unfolding since the mid-19th century. Throughout the reform process, advocates were inspired by a combination of liberal and modernist ideas. This book examines those guiding concepts and illustrates the often messy process of applying them to real-world institutions. While most reforms began from common goals, they ultimately produced different—and frequently unexpected—institutional outcomes, which continue to shape Japanese politics. By focusing on the relationship between the ideas and processes that shaped Japan’s reforms, this book presents a broad vision of institutional change in comparative politics.
Although party polarization is one of the most significant focal points in the study of contemporary US politics, a limited number of studies have examined its theoretical implications for other ...countries. In addition, a great deal of effort has been made in the study of the changes in voting bases (i.e., constituencies or interest groups). However, little attention has been given to the features of party organization. In this study we look at the process of polarization between two major parties in Japan in recent years and analyze the way Japanese parties took an alternative path to polarization. We argue that party polarization can be caused by the strategic position-taking of the party executive in addition to the centralization of the party organization.
How does the contemporary Japanese prime minister lead other actors autonomously in policy processes? It is often pointed out that one of the current features is the leadership of the prime ...ministerial office or the “strong” premiership. The author depends on the original dataset of the prime minister's meeting records to analyze the transformation of the Japanese premiership in the last thirty-seven years since the Ohira Administration. A major finding of the analysis is that the prime minister has depended more on the narrow network of the core executives and less on other actors when involving policy processes. It implies the tendency towards autonomous and leading roles of the prime minister more in the contemporary Japanese politics than in the past, based on significant institutional changes including the electoral and administrative reforms. It is also noticed that this tendency is fundamentally maintained despite of political turnovers.
