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Originally published in 1906.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

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Japan: Foreign Policy & Government Guide (World Spy Guide Library) ... Read more

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Ozaki Yukio, who was returned to his seat in the Japanese Diet twenty-five times, served in that body from its inception in 1890 to 1953. He was several times a cabinet member and, for ten years, mayor of Tokyo. A strong advocate of representative government, he both witnessed and propelled Japan's transformation from a late feudal society to a modern state. His autobiography, available in English for the first time, gives an insider's account of key episodes and leaders over seven decades of Japanese history.

Ozaki's political life spanned the Meiji rise to power and Japan's defeat in World War II, and he played a significant role in each phase of that epic. As a young reporter, he gained preeminence with incisive calls for supremacy in East Asia. A European trip that showed him the devastation of World War I converted him to advocacy of arms reduction and international cooperation. He watched with dismay as Japan encountered isolation and military disaster. Known for the courage of his convictions, he became a marked man, carrying a death poem in his pocket. His sturdy independence survived the American Occupation, as he deplored his associates' readiness to heed occupation dictates.

Ozaki's story reverberates with the immediacy of his personal knowledge of every major Japanese political figure for three-quarters of a century. It is the account of a man who made history as well as writing it. His story is the story of modern Japan. Through it, readers will gain first-hand knowledge of Japanese constitutional history, one with rich relevance for contemporary Japanese politics. ... Read more

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Marvellously-told story of Japan's political development
Ozaki was a real original, a samurai fighting for political modernization and responsible government. Elected to the very first Diet in 1890, he served for more than 60 turbulent years. He knew everyone in Japanese public life and draws sharp portraits of them and their actions. The story is told clearly enough (with annotations where needed) and vividly enough to serve as an introduction to Japan's political history. The editing and translation, by Ozaki's grand-daughter, is excellent.

Will O'Neil ... Read more

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The aftermath of Japan's 1945 military defeat left its public institutions in a state of deep crisis; virtually every major source of state legitimacy was seriously damaged or wholly remade by the postwar occupation. Between 1960 and 1990, however, these institutions renewed their strength, taking on legitimacy that erased virtually all traces of their postwar instability.

How did this transformation come about? This is the question Ellis S. Krauss ponders in Broadcasting Politics in Japan; his answer focuses on the role played by the Japanese mass media and in particular by Japan's national broadcaster, NHK.

Since the 1960s, television has been a fixture of the Japanese household, and NHK's TV news has until very recently been the dominant, and most trusted, source of political information for the Japanese citizen. NHK's news style is distinctive among the broadcasting systems of industrialized countries; it emphasizes facts over interpretation and gives unusual priority to coverage of the national bureaucracy. Krauss argues that this approach is not simply a reflection of Japanese culture, but a result of the organization and processes of NHK and their relationship with the state. These factors had profound consequences for the state's postwar re-legitimization, while the commercial networks' recent challenge to NHK has helped engender the wave of cynicism currently faced by the state.

Krauss guides the reader through the complex interactions among politics, media organizations, and Japanese journalism to demonstrate how NHK television news became a shaper of Japan's political world, rather than simply a lens through which to view it. ... Read more

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A Very Very Interesting Book
I had to write a report on Japan and this book was amazing.It had almost everything i needed.If i could I would give it 6+ stars! This book is truly interesting and very educational.Kansas ... Read more

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An Extraordinary Book
This brilliant and highly readable book deals mostly with Japan, specifically how the Japanese government shapes its civil society through its influence over non-governmental agencies in that country. In so doing, the author also raises troubling and provacative questions about how, through the multitude of NGOs permitted in the U.S., we conduct our own political and social affairs. I don't think anyone can read this book and not rethink the kind of political polarization and cacophonous social climate we have created in this country through the proliferation of NGOs, from the AARP to the Sierra Club. ... Read more

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This book provides a comprehensive guide to the state and politics in Japan at the start of the twenty-first century. In it, Ian Neary asks if the state in Japan is in any important sense different from states in western societies. He seeks to answer this question through an examination of the historical process that created the modern state, a description of the main institutions and actors in contemporary political life and an analysis of four important areas of policy-making.

In Japan, as elsewhere in East Asia where the ‘developmental state' has played a key political and economic role, civil society has been the product of, not the precondition to, the development of capitalist society and the modern state. Neary explores the formation of the modern Japanese state and shows that, though it established the foundations of industrial growth, it left little or no room for the formation of groups that make up civil society elsewhere. The book then focuses on the political parties of both left and right, characteristics of the electoral systems and the political and bureaucratic structures at national and local levels. Individual chapters on foreign and defence policy, industrial policy, welfare provision and human rights consider the interaction between state and non-state actors in specific policy contexts.

Assuming no prior knowledge of Japan or politics, this textbook will be essential reading for students of political science and international relations as well as anyone seeking an introduction to government in Japan today. ... Read more

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Written by leading experts, Public Administration in East Asia: Mainland China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan examines the inner workings of governments in East Asia, in particular its public administration and related public policy processes. It focuses on the apparatus of government — the agencies, their values, context, and policies within which they operate. Organized in parallel sections, the book covers the history, public policy processes, organization, HRM, ethics, corruption, intergovernmental relations, performance management, and e-government. It discusses each of these topics separately for Mainland China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, providing an unusual and important comparative perspective. The book includes essential knowledge and facts, discussions of emerging issues, and useful resources for further reading. It addresses questions such as:

• What is the history of public administration in East Asia?
• How are decisions made?
• What is the role of Confucianism in shaping public administration?
• How does the developmental path affect public administration?
• Why is performance management emphasized?
• What is the state of citizen participation?
• How are ethical underpinnings of the civil service different from the West?
• Why are intergovernmental relations an essential issue in East Asia?
• What are the politics behind world-class achievements in IT?
• What is the nature of civil service reform?
• What is the nature of efforts to combat government corruption?

You can find many books on trade policy and politics that sometimes give good insight into the operation of government agencies. You can also find a few edited books that contain single chapters on countries in the Asia-Pacific region. What is missing, however, is a single resource that provides an overview with depth on matters solely about public administration. This state-of-the-art resource brings together the fragments of existing knowledge on East Asian economies, filling the need for a comprehensive compendium that showcases the public administration practices in the region and East Asia’s innovative approaches to governance and its many challenges.

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Japan is arguably today's most successful industrial economy, combining almost unprecedented affluence with social stability and apparent harmony. Japanese goods and cultural products--from animated movies and computer games to cars, semiconductors, and management techniques--are consumed around the world. In many ways, Japan is an icon of the modern world, and yet it remains something of an enigma to many, who see it as a confusing montage of the alien and the familiar, the ancient and modern. This Very Short Introduction explodes the myths and explores the reality of modern Japan, offering a concise, engaging, and accessible look at the history, economy, politics, and culture of this fascinating nation. It examines what the term "modern" means to the Japanese, debunks the notion that Japan went through a period of total isolation from the world, and explores the continuity between pre- and post-war Japan. Anyone curious about this intriguing country will find a wealth of insight and information in these pages. ... Read more

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A great introduction to Modern Japan
Modern Japan is one of the most enigmatic and intriguing countries in the world. A highly sophisticated society and an economic and technological superpower, Japan has maintained many aspects of its traditional values and lifestyle well into the twenty-first century. Part of the mystique of Japan lays in the fact that even though it has been officially open to the World for over a century and a half, Japan is still a very insular society. Not many people in the West get to travel to Japan, and Japanese popular culture (with few notable exceptions) is not all that familiar to Western audiences. In light of that, it is very helpful to get a better sense of Japan from a very authoritative short introduction such as this one.

The book is arranged chronologically, and starts with a brief history of Japan prior to its opening up and modernization in the nineteenth century. It proceeds with the arrival of commodore Perry and the subsequent Meiji restoration. The book is good in that it doesn't reinforce the conventional wisdom on these events, but it tries to give its own much more nuanced analysis of these events. Likewise, most of the twentieth century Japanese history is presented from a critical angle that tries to take into the account Japan's own perception and understanding of those events.

One of the particularly pleasing traits of this book is the attention that it gives to cultural and artistic developments. Many of Japan's most famous writers and artists have been spotlighted. However, I would have also liked if the book mentioned some of the greatest scientists of the twentieth century like Yukawa and Tomonaga, who have helped put Japanese science in the World map.

One problem that I have with the book is that in its effort to adopt the scholarly naming conventions it oftentimes makes the names of some Japanese historical figures unnecessarily confusing. Thus, Japanese emperor during WWII, who is known to the generations of westerners as Emperor Hirohito, is consistently referred to as Emperor Sowa. Likewise, the book also uses the convention in which surnames precede given names. This may be the correct way of rendering them and probably in line with Japanese convention, but to those of us who have been acquainted with Japanese cultural icons for many years it sounds quite a bit strange.

Overall, this is an interesting and informative book on Modern Japan. It is a very helpful first step in getting oneself acquainted with this fascinating country and its culture. ... Read more

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Recognizing the need for Japan to clearly articulate its position on foreign policy and security issues in an international context, six Japanese scholars examine Japan's foreign and security policy options for the 21st century and present new policy proposals. The authors address such topics as ways of improving Sino-Japanese political relations, the need to rectify Japan's plutonium policy, the importance of making relief for the growing number of refugees around the world a priority of Japan's official development assistance programme, the need for a balance between economic sanctions and inducements vis-a-vis the closed regimes of China and North Korea, the necessity of flexible development and deployment of Japanese and US theater missile defense systems to restrain China, and the importance for the Japan-U.S. alliance of coordinating the differences in the two countries' policies toward Iran. ... Read more

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The struggle between politicians and bureaucrats for control over public policy decision making is an important feature of politics in all advanced democratic political systems. It has a particular intensity in Japan, especially now with the bureaucracy under attack for its policy failures and its resistance to reform and with the political party system going through a period of fundamental change. Japan is in the midst of the search for a new framework for policymaking, a search that involves not only the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats but that between the Prime Minister's Office and the governing party organizations, the role of Diet committees, and the issue of staff support for politicians, parties, and the prime minister and cabinet.

Following an overview written by volume editor Gerald L. Curtis, this book offers the perspective of six politicians from the Liberal Democratic, Democratic, and New Komeito parties who represent a new generation of politicians in Japan attempting to design a new architecture for policymaking. Each of them discusses the role that politicians play in the policy process from the perspective of a specific substantive policy issue. Two chapters, one by a member of the LDP and another by a Democratic Party member, offer differing perspectives on banking system reform. Also included are chapters by LDP politicians on education and information technology, one by a Democratic Party politicians on reform of the government's huge public works programs, and another by a member of the New Komeito on revision of the Commercial Code. Together these chapters provide important analysis of several critical issues confronting the Japanese political economy today and insights in the Japanese debate about the role politicians do and should play in policymaking. ... Read more