Political Change in Japan

by Reed, Steven R.

• ISBN13: 9781931368148
• ISBN10: 1931368147
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-08-27
• Publisher: The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center

Summary

In the early 1990s, Japanese reformers promised a political transformation: fewer pork-barrel projects, more accountability, and greater transparency. Have these promises been realized?

Author Biography

Steven R. Reed is a professor of modern government at Chuo University, Tokyo, Japan. He has taught in Japan and in Japanese for the past fifteen years. Kenneth Mori McElwain is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Michigan. He studies how partisan incentives influence the design of political institutions. Kay Shimizu is an assistant professor of political science at Columbia University. Her research examines how politics determines economic outcomes and the institutions that facilitate political influence.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Introduction	p. 3
An Overview of Postwar Japanese Politics	p. 5
Electoral Politics	p. 27
Avoiding a Two-Party System: The Liberal Democratic Party versus Duverger's Law	p. 29
Has the Electoral-System Reform Made Japanese Elections Party-Centered?	p. 47
Pork-Barrel Politics and Partisan Realignment in Japan	p. 67
Declining Electoral Competitiveness in Japan: Postreform Trends and Theoretical Pessimism	p. 87
Koizumi	p. 107
How Koizumi Won	p. 109
How Long Are Koizumi's Coattails? Party-Leader Visits in the 2005 Election	p. 133
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Japanese Postal Privatization as a Window on Political and Policymaking Change	p. 157
Beyond Electoral Politics	p. 181
The Slow Government Response to Japan's Bank Crisis: A New Interpretation	p. 181
Stealing Elections: A Comparison of Election-Night Corruption in Japan, Canada, and the United States	p. 199
Women in Politics	p. 219
The Puzzle of the Japanese Gender Gap in Liberal Democratic Party Support	p. 221
Women Running for National Office in Japan: Are Koizumi's Female "Children" a Short-Term Anomaly or a Lasting Phenomenon?	p. 239
Surrogate Representation: Building Sustainable Linkage Structures in Contemporary Japanese Politics	p. 261
Conclusion	p. 279
Japanese Politics in the Koizumi Era: Temporary Anomaly or a Paradigm Shift?	p. 281
Index	p. 293
About the Contributors	p. 317
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