Japan's deepest recession since the Second World War has come to an end in 2000. Yet, the task of reforming Japan is far from completed. The current political drift has brought deregulation to a premature end putting the still vulnerable recovery at risk. What structural changes have already taken place? What important reforms have to be undertaken in the future? The contributions of the book shed light on the transitional path of the Japanese system amid rapid globalization. Can Japan Globalize? covers a broad range of areas from macro- and micro-economic structures to political and social relations.

Japan grew explosively and consistently for more than a century, from the Meiji Restoration until the collapse of the economic bubble in the early 1990s. Since then, it has been unable to restart its economic engine and respond to globalization. How could the same political–economic system produce such strongly contrasting outcomes? This book identifies the crucial variables as classic Japanese forms of socio-political organization: the "circles of compensation." These cooperative groupings of economic, political, and bureaucratic interests dictate corporate and individual responses to such critical issues as investment and innovation; at the micro level, they explain why individuals can be decidedly cautious on their own, yet prone to risk-taking as a collective. Kent E. Calder examines how these circles operate in seven concrete areas, from food supply to consumer electronics, and deals in special detail with the influence of Japan's changing financial system. The result is a comprehensive overview of Japan's circles of compensation as they stand today, and a road map for broadening them in the future.

Globalization and the Politics of Institutional Reform in Japan illuminates Japan's contemporary and historical struggle to adjust policy and the institutional architecture of government to an evolving global order. This focused and scholarly study identifies that key to this difficulty is a structural tendency towards central political command, which reduces the country's capacity to follow a more subtle allocation of authority that ensures political leadership remains robust and non-dictatorial. Thus, Motoshi Suzuki argues that it is essential for a globalizing state to incorporate opposition parties and transgovernmental networks into policy-making processes. Providing an in-depth analysis of the theories of institutional change, this book introduces readers to a wealth of perspectives and counterarguments concerning analysis of political decision-making and policy adjustment on both the national and international scale. Placing Japanese policy reform in the global context and relating policy reform to leadership's political strategies, the author gives a detailed chronological and analytical overview of Japan's challenging institutional, political and bureaucratic transformations since the Meiji Restoration of the late nineteenth century. Analysis of globalization and policy reform in a non-liberal state, and the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats from an international perspective is included. For those interested in historical and contemporary Japanese politics from a theoretical perspective, particularly the implications of globalization and the politician-bureaucrat relationship, this is an indispensable resource.

Globalization is usually thought of as the worldwide spread of Western—particularly American—popular culture. Yet if one nation stands out in the dissemination of pop culture in East and Southeast Asia, it is Japan. Pokémon, anime, pop music, television dramas such as Tokyo Love Story and Long Vacation—the export of Japanese media and culture is big business. In Recentering Globalization, Koichi Iwabuchi explores how Japanese popular culture circulates in Asia. He situates the rise of Japan’s cultural power in light of decentering globalization processes and demonstrates how Japan’s extensive cultural interactions with the other parts of Asia complicate its sense of being "in but above" or "similar but superior to" the region. Iwabuchi has conducted extensive interviews with producers, promoters, and consumers of popular culture in Japan and East Asia. Drawing upon this research, he analyzes Japan’s "localizing" strategy of repackaging Western pop culture for Asian consumption and the ways Japanese popular culture arouses regional cultural resonances. He considers how transnational cultural flows are experienced differently in various geographic areas by looking at bilateral cultural flows in East Asia. He shows how Japanese popular music and television dramas are promoted and understood in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and how "Asian" popular culture (especially Hong Kong’s) is received in Japan. Rich in empirical detail and theoretical insight, Recentering Globalization is a significant contribution to thinking about cultural globalization and transnationalism, particularly in the context of East Asian cultural studies.

Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization is the only concise overview of Japan's phenomenal impact on world pop culture available in English. Surveying Japanese forms from anime (animation) and manga (comic books) to monster movies and Hello Kitty products, this volume is an accessible introduction to Japan's pop creativity and its appeal worldwide. Written in an accessible style and illustrated with more than 20 photographs, Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization combines a historical approach to the evolution and diffusion of Japanese pop with interdisciplinary perspectives from anthropology, literary studies, political science, and the visual arts. Includes a useful glossary of terms and a bibliography of recommended readings.

The multiple and diverse forces of globalization have, indeed, affected Japan significantly over the past decades. But so, it must be said, has Japan influenced a variety of critical global developments - globalization is not a one-way street, particularly for a nation as economically influential and technologically advanced as Japan. The chapters in this collection examine the impact of globalization on Japan and the impact of Japan on the forces of globalization from the various disciplinary perspectives of business, the economy, politics, technology, culture and society. They also explain the manner in which the nation has responded to the economic and cultural liberalization that has been such a profound force for change around the globe. This comprehensive collected works brings the latest research to bear on this important subject and provides evidence of the long history of global influences on Japan – and Japanese impacts on the rest of the world. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of globalization, Japanese Studies, and Asian Studies.