This is an open access book. Relations between Brazil and Japan progressed dynamically in the 1960s and 1970s, centering on the substantial complementarity between Japan’s needing primary goods to sustain high economic growth and Brazil’s seeking non-hegemonic investment to invigorate its resource potential. Now that this complementarity has lost significance, the two countries are restructuring their relations to protect shared values of democracy, freedom, the rule of law, and the need for maintaining good relations with both China and the United States. Analyzed here is the development of this renewed bilateral relationship in multiple directions: productivity, global environment and health, migration, and triangular cooperation in third countries’ development. Facing the prospect of a declining population, Japan may become more open to international migration, but the experience with Japanese-descent Brazilian workers since the amendment of the migration control law in 1990 presents many lessons and challenges for the symbiosis of multicultural groups. Brazil, for its part, needs to address social inequality. To this end, it is fundamental to improve the quality of work. This book argues that Brazil and Japan can benefit from cooperation in managing those country-specific issues. It also discusses ways that Brazil and Japan can profit from coordinating action on global problems such as greenhouse gas reduction, mitigation of tropical diseases, healthy community building, and high-quality infrastructure for poverty reduction.

This Elgar Introduction provides an overview of some of the key theories that inform human resource management and employment relations as a field of study.

This book examines the role of external powers in Latin America in the 21st century. Non-traditional partners have significantly increased their political and economic engagement with the continent. Five key questions arise: why has this surge taken place; when has it happened; in which regions and sectors is it mostly felt; what is the Latin American perspective; and what are the actual results? The book analyses 16 case studies: the United States, the European Union, China, Russia, Japan, Canada, India, Turkey, Iran, Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, the ASEAN countries, South Africa and Australia. The spectrum of existing explanations in the literature spans from neo-extractivism to South-South cooperation. This volume places them in context and proposes a more multifaceted approach, stressing a combination of systemic factors and internal dynamics both in Latin America and in the external partner countries. Geopolitics still matters and so do nation states, their interests and leaders. Ultimately, this surge in engagement has largely reproduced past patterns. Are new partners that different from the old ones?

The book explores the ways in which Latin American states are capitalizing or failing to capitalize on the initiatives of China in world affairs. The authors hypothesize that a dearth of regional agency and social construction, and a consequent institutional deficit in foreign relations, characterizes Latin America and its inadequate reaction to Chinese agency. The volume includes multiple case studies from eight Latin American countries and discusses the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s initiatives and policies. The book will interest scholars, researchers, policy-makers, foreign policy analysts, and graduate students in Latin American and Asian politics as well as development studies and political economy.

Japans System of Official Development Assistance