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Japanese democracy : power, coordination, and performance / Bradley Richardson

Author
Richardson, Bradley M.
Published
New Haven, Conn : Yale University Press, [1997]
Copyright Date
©1997
Physical Description
1 online resource (ix, 325 pages) : illustrations
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Contents
Postwar politics: images and questions -- Political culture and electoral behavior -- Parties under the "1955 system" -- Party fragmentation and coalition dynamics -- Executive and bureaucratic power -- Legislative politics -- Interests, policy, and power -- Business interests and political life -- The government and the economy -- Japan as a bargained distributive democracy.
Summary
In this new analysis of democracy in Japan, Bradley Richardson refutes the widely accepted hypothesis that postwar Japan has been a semiauthoritarian and consensual state, heavily influenced by corporations and led by the government bureaucracy. On the contrary, Richardson's extensive newspaper and documentary research shows that Japanese political life has been extremely fragmented and discordant at all levels - in the bureaucracy, legislatures, parties, and interest groups and in business and industry.
In Japanese Democracy, Richardson explores power relations and demonstrates how Japan's political system is unlike Great Britain's and similar to those of the United States and Italy, where politics is decentralized and decisions are made at many levels. He draws some important conclusions: that Japan's postwar industrial policy has not always been successful, that the country is as much an economic welfare state as it is an economic "miracle," and that the lack of strong leadership has kept Japan from playing a more assertive role in the international arena. As in the United States, private interests hold central policymaking processes hostage, and weak leadership prevails.
Subject(s)
ISBN
0585351872 (electronic bk.)
9780585351872 (electronic bk.)
9780300062588
0300062583
9780300076646
0300076649
0300062583 (cloth ; alk. paper)
0300076649 (pbk.)
Bibliography Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 267-315) and index.
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