Policy & Politics Japan

By T.J. Pempel

Book Overview

Analyzes six areas of domestic policy-making in Japan: administrative reform, economic policy, labor relations, social welfare, environmental policy, and higher education. This book contains selected readings translated from official government documents and the writings of critics of official policy for each case.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0877222509
• ISBN13: 9780877222507
• Release Date: January 1982
• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Length: 352 Pages

Customer Reviews

Outdated but worth reading

You might click away to other link when you check the year of publication, 1981 (actually 1982). Yep. This book couldn¡¯t include later developments in Japanese researches and real life events. But I don¡¯t think this limitation shatters down the whole value of the book. I thought in that way when I should read this book for a graduate class. But when I opened then book, my presumption proved wrong. This book overviews in skillful manner the issues raised on the public sphere of postwar Japan upto ¡®70s, ranging from economic policy, labor-management relations, social welfare, higher education, environmental protection, to administrative reform. I think the accounts of Pempel in this book still are valid. There is not much titles which effectively overview postwar Japan as a whole. Each chapter is structured into 4 sections:Context: this section offers the reader a historical standpoint from prewar period to understand the overall trend of each issue. Agenda: this section deals with real issues raised in the public sphere.Process: this section sketches out what was the political process to tackle the issues.Consequences:These 4 sections provide the clear picture of each area of agenda in the cumulative spiral way. But the real beauty is the part of ¡®Readings¡¯ in each chapter. This part contains the document from real actors from LDP, JSP, labor unions, government agencies, and economic federations like Keidanren. Readings part occupies almost half of each chapter. I haven¡¯t seen any books on Japan structured in this way.