Governing Japan - J. A. A. Stockwin

The third edition of Governing Japan provides a comprehensive introduction to Japanese political institutions, processes and culture, taking account of the remarkable changes of recent years. The author makes the often confusing Japanese political system comprehensible to the outside observer. He examines Japan's politics in light of its cultural and historical situation whilst relating Japan's experience to the rest of the world.
This new edition of the established textbook in this field reflects the patterns of complexity and variety in the Japanese political experience in the 1980s and 1990s. The book identifies six crises central to the Japanese political agenda at the end of the millennium:
A crisis of political power ? a crisis of bureaucracy.
A crisis of political apathy and lack of confidence in government.
A crisis of economic management.
A crisis of public satisfaction over life chances.
A crisis of the constitution and Japan's world role.
The author analyses the degrees of recent reform in the Japanese political system and argues that moves towards political change in the 1990s reflect a deep malaise in politics, economy and society
Governing Japan provides students with an invaluable guide to this transitional period in Japanese politics and the problems and potential solutions that lie ahead.

J. A. A. Stockwin is Nissan Professor of Modern Japanese Studies at the University of Oxford and Director of the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies. Between 1964 and 1981 he taught at the Australian National University in Canberra, and he has spent several periods of research at Japanese universities. He is author ofThe Japanese Socialist Party and Neutralism (1968), editor of Japan and Australia in the Seventies (1972), joint author of Dynamic and Immobilist Politics in Japan (1988) and translator of The Establishment of the Japanese Constitutional System, by Junji Banno (1992).

"Here, as in the previous two editions of Stockwin's respected introductory texts on Japanese government, the economic state of Japan is rightly judged to be the linch–pin of political well–being and of global interest in this country. "David Williams, Japan Times

"Governing Japan is a splendid achievement: balanced, sober and authoritative. Sometimes dismissed as "old–fashioned" by those who should know better, his approach draws on the political scientific tradition at its best. This book is a triumph of the liberal spirit." David Williams, Japan Times

"Professor Stockwin's book is a careful investigation of Japan's political system, with the approach being that of an informed, but outside, observer. From an academic point of view, the arguments are clearly set out, thoroughly justified, and the key issues within the field are addressed. Given the debates in the 1990s between proponents of 'rational choice theory' and the revisionists, Stockwin's book takes a refreshing and timely middle road, acknowledging the value of both schools of thought." Curtis Andressen, Flinders University, Australian Journal of Political Science