Changing Politics in Japan

Changing Politics in Japan is a fresh and insightful account of the profound changes that have shaken up the Japanese political system and transformed it almost beyond recognition in the last couple of decades. Ikuo Kabashima—a former professor who is...

Ikuo Kabashima is Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo, and Governor of Kumamoto Prefecture. His many books include Elites and the Idea of Equality. Gill Steel is Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Tokyo. She is coeditor of Reform in Japan: Assessing the Impact.

This book is rich in detail and provides a valuable summary of all of the tumultuous events that have occurred in Japanese politics since the early 1990s. A major strength of the book lies precisely in its broad sweep.... The authors provide a refreshingly balanced account that points not only to institutional but also to longer term socio-economic factors as drivers of change in Japanese politics.

Koji Murata:

The study is concise and well documented with many statistics and other sources. The authors 'set out to demolish further the once prevalent myth that Japanese politics are a stagnant set of entrenched systems and interests that are fundamentally undemocratic' (p. 1)... this book provides very balanced and concise overviews of Japanese politics.

Takashi Inoguchi, President, University of Niigata Prefecture and Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo:

Ikuo Kabashima and Gill Steel have done it! They have insightfully and forcefully revealed how the Japanese 'regime change' of 2009 was prepared at the grassroots level. Changing Politics in Japan features a vast amount of data from the 'perspective from below,' the citizen/elite and voter/party relationships. This is a very accessible book for understanding the 'changing Japan.'.

T. J. Pempel, University of California, Berkeley:

Changing Politics in Japan provides an up-to-date, integrated, and historically salient argument about the links between parties, politicians, and elections in postwar Japan. Ikuo Kabashima and Gill Steel expand on the rising role of the media and changes in the nature of the Japanese bureaucracy.