The 1990s have been termed as 'Japan's lost decade' to describe how the phenomenal growth in the Japanese economy ground to a halt and the country was crippled by enormous and ongoing political, economic and social problems. In responding to these unprecedented difficulties, wide-ranging reforms have been adopted including NPO, information disclosure and judicial reform legislation. Controversially, this book argues that such reforms are creating a more robust civil society and demonstrate that Japan is far more dynamic than is generally recognized.

Why has Japan emerged from the “lost decades” unscathed from the populist wave and a far more consequential actor in the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific? In answering this question, Japan’s Quiet Leadership provides a sweeping look at Japan’s domestic economic and political evolution, its economic statecraft, and the array of geopolitical challenges that have triggered a gradual but substantial shift in the country’s security profile. This deep dive into Japan’s trajectory over the last three decades underscores Japan’s hidden strengths in its democratic resilience, social stability, and proactive diplomacy; while reckoning with the profound challenges the nation faces: depopulation, rising inequality, voter disengagement, and threats to Asia’s long peace. The book traces the profound currents of change coursing through the Japanese polity and its external environment; and the myriad ways in which Japan’s experience has become more relevant to countries coping with slow growth, adverse demographics, adjustment to economic globalization, and the emergence of a powerful and assertive China. This is a story of Japan’s reinvention as a network power to overcome the harsh realities of diminishing relative capabilities. In reshaping the Indo-Pacific, Tokyo deployed a robust economic strategy of trade integration and infrastructure finance; and a proactive security diplomacy cultivating new partnerships with regional and extra-regional actors and deepening the alliance with the United States. Nevertheless, acute geopolitical rifts, Japan’s pandemic insularity, and the securitization of international economic relations are testing Japan’s statecraft of connectivity. The tasks at home are no less pressing: delivering on the green, digital, and human capital transformations, avoiding the return of the politics of indecision at the helm of the nation, and fostering democratic dynamism. This book illuminates where the Japanese polity, economy, and people are heading as we move past the Abe era, and well into the 2020s and beyond.

Controversially, this book argues that the Japan that emerges from its manifold problems of the 1990s may be stronger than before.

These gripping biographies poignantly illustrate the strengths and the vulnerabilities of professional housewives and of families facing social change and economic uncertainty in contemporary Japan.

Since 1945, Japan has successfully reinvented itself, rising from the ashes of defeat to become a peaceful and prosperous nation. It is seen as an inspiration for other developing nations and contributes significantly to global development. As the third largest economy in the world, with a reputation for technological innovation and cultural creativity, Japan is a country shaping the world we live in. In this new edition of Japan in Transformation, Jeffrey Kingston explores the character of the nation as it has evolved since the end of the Second World War. The book: - examines the US Occupation and explains the causes of the economic miracle and its demise - evaluates the effect of the Lost Decade of the 1990s and the unravelling of the Japan, Inc system that prevailed in the twentieth century - analyses such central and topical issues as the demographic crisis, regional relations, security concerns, political change and the role of women Expanded and thoroughly revised to cover the period of 1945 to 2010, this second edition of Japan in Transformation provides a succinct and comprehensive study of the recent history of one of the most dynamic nations in the modern world.

This book provides undergraduate and graduate students with an interdisciplinary compendium written by a number of leading specialists on contemporary Japan. Chapters reflect the standards of rigorous scholarly work, but also exceed them in their accessibility of language and engagement with concerns relevant to non-specialists. The probing analysis of key debates and issues confronting Japan make this ideal for college courses and an essential reference work on Japan/Asia for libraries. This book encompasses a range of disciplines in the social sciences and thus will be useful for a variety of courses including Comparative Politics, Media Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Asian Studies, International Relations, Public Policy, Healthcare, Education, Judicial Reform, Gender and Minority Studies. The strength of this volume is in the collective efforts of accomplished experts providing in-depth analysis and up-to-date comprehensive coverage of Japan in the 21st century. Students will gain the analytical insights and information necessary to assess the challenges that confront the Japanese people, policymakers and private and public sector institutions. Key issues covered in this volume include: * Rapidly Aging society * Changing Employment system * Energy policy-Nuclear and Renewable * Gender discrimination * Immigration * Ethnic minorities * Trade policy * Civil society * Rural Japan * Okinawa * Post-3.11 Tsunami, earthquake, nuclear meltdown developments * Internationalization * Sino-Japanese relations * East Asia’s divisive history

AUTHOR copy: Japan in Transformation explores the conservative inertias and progressive yearnings that characterise contemporary Japan. The second half of the twentieth century was a tumultuous period that transformed the way Japanese view the world and act in it. This ideological transformation was driven by and reinforced institutional changes, economic development, political ferment and the dynamic tension between prevailing norms and shifting realities. While focusing on transformation, this book is sensitive to the incremental and cumulative nature of change and howthe past resonates powerfully in the present. Old verities linger and influence the patterns, pace and nature of ongoing changes. As Japan enters the twenty first century, it is in the midst of a third great transformation on a par with the Meiji Restoration (1868) and the US Occupation (1945-52) and it is not yet certain whether Japan will yet again emerge from considerable adversity with the same degree of success it enjoyed in the past. The various forces that are driving the metamorphosis of modern Japan are exposing the limits of the postwar model. The logic of the economic and political arrangements that have prevailed are changing, with profound consequences for society. There is ambivalence about the rapidity of change and the erosion of tenets many Japanese feel have been important to their identity as people, cohesion as a community and success as a renovating democracy, taming militarism and rejoining the community of industrialized societies, but seems to have done a better job in containing and coping with these problems. This interpretive history focuses on the economic miracle, how Japan's troubled past in Asia is debated among Japanese and how it influences its contemporary regional relations, the changing role of women, the implications of Japan's demographic time bomb, the Third Transformation and the Lost Decade of the 1990s.