This volume presents an analysis of Japan's powerful upper bureaucracy in the post-war period. The author’s aim is to provide an empirical foundation for the many impressionistic accounts of Japanese bureaucracy and a systematic basis for comparative studies of bureaucracies in other countries. The study ranges from the family and geographic backgrounds of higher civil servants through their educational training and career patterns to their retirement and post-retirement activities. Throughout, the emphasis is on assembling and analyzing the kind of systematic data that provide a solid basis for understanding how the Japanese bureaucracy actually works. Originally published in 1969. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This book explains how postwar Japan managed to achieve a highly egalitarian form of capitalism despite meager social spending. Estevez-Abe develops an institutional, rational-choice model to solve this puzzle. She shows how Japan's electoral system generated incentives that led political actors to protect various groups that lost out in market competition. She explains how Japan's postwar welfare state relied upon various alternatives to orthodox social spending programs. The initial postwar success of Japan's political economy has given way to periods of crisis and reform. This book follows this story up to the present day. Estevez-Abe shows how the current electoral system renders obsolete the old form of social protection. She argues that institutionally Japan now resembles Britain and predicts that Japan's welfare system will also come to resemble Britain's. Japan thus faces a more market-oriented society and less equality.

The Palgrave Handbook of the Public Servant examines what it means to be a public servant in today’s world(s) where globalisation and neoliberalism have proliferated the number of actors who contribute to the public purpose sector and created new spaces that public servants now operate in. It considers how different scholarly approaches can contribute to a better understanding of the identities, motivations, values, roles, skills, positions and futures for the public servant, and how scholarly knowledge can be informed by and translated into value for practice. The book combines academic contributions with those from practitioners so that key lessons may be synthesised and translated into the context of the public servant.

Although the United States Education Mission recommended that the Japanese give serious consideration to the introduction of alphabetic writing, key American officials in the Civil Information and Education Section of GHQ/SCAP delayed and effectively killed action on this recommendation. Japanese advocates of romanization nevertheless managed to obtain CI&E approval for an experiment in elementary schools to test the hypothesis that schoolchildren could make faster progress if spared the necessity of studying Chinese characters as part of non-language courses such as arithmetic. Though not conclusive, the experiment's results supported the hypothesis and suggested the need for more and better testing.

In this major revision of his classic history of Japan—from the tribally divided state under the leadership of Yamato in the fifth century through centuries of dynastic rule to the death of Emperor Hirohito in 1989—the eminent Harvard historian and former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer incorporates nearly a decade's worth of new scholarship. His book is divided into three parts: the first part examines traditional Japan from the early Chinese influences to the flowering of a native culture and the establishment of a feudal system and society; the second looks at Japan in transition from the beginnings of the modern state to the rise of militarism and the advent of World War II; the third section, extensively rewritten to reflect Japan's drastically changed role in world affairs since 1984, deals with postwar Japan from the American Occupation and years of political division and instability to Japan's gradual metamorphosis into an economic giant. The Nakosone and Takeshita years are discussed at length, and the transformation of Japan's economy, hinged upon surging exports to the West, is analyzed. Clear, concise, and enormously informative, Reischauer's Japan: The Story of a Nation encompasses political, social, economic, and cultural history in a superbly readbable narrative.

The recent revival of democracy across much of the globe, and the fragility of many of the new regimes, have inspired renewed interest in the origins of dictatorship and democracy in modern times. This book assembles renowned specialists on Eastern and Western Europe, the U.S., Latin America, and Japan to explore why democracies have succeeded and why they have failed over the past 100 years.

Japanese industrial standards have long been the benchmark for quality products within Asia, indeed, within the world. Major Japanese industries like Toyota, Sony, and Honda, to name but a few, are household names that have contributed to this small island nation's status as the world's second largest economy. Japanese business practices and theories have permeated the mindset of its surrounding nations, and the country's long-term investment in the ever-growing Chinese market has further secured its status as an economic powerhouse. The A to Z of Japanese Business is an examination of the origins and characteristics of Japan's business culture. This handy reference book includes most of the important words or company names that foreign business people visiting Japan might encounter and provides an overview of Japanese corporate culture both from an historical standpoint and with reference to its most distinctive features as they affect organization and management. This is accomplished through its historical chronology detailing significant events of the past as well as recent developments within the Japanese economy and business world in general, various appendixes offering lists of business expressions that are in daily use along with a selection of the most commonly used business proverbs, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on Japanese companies, their founders and managers, the ever-present bureaucratic bodies, and progress in the major industries.

Globalization transcends borders and cultures as it develops both from the natural flow of information and communication technologies and as a directed and driven quest for global hegemony by self-serving corporations and world political heavyweights. It bears a multifaceted web of influence that manifests in inequalities in growth, prosperity, and