In this volume the reader will find interesting forms of analysis on Japan just as it was embarking on potentially the most important changes in its political system since 1955, when the Liberal Democratic Party was created through a merger of Japan's two dominant conservative parties of that era. With the old Cold War verities no longer in place, new challenges arose for the Japanese government and Japanese corporations. The challenges of the 1990s include a protracted domestic economic downturn, and the need to begin redefining Japan's international profile in the face of an increasingly powerful China, an ever more desperate North Korea, and shifts in the shared responsibility built into the US-Japan security treaty.

Autorentext

DAVID ARASE Associate Professor, Department of Politics, Pomona College, Claremont, California KENT E. CALDER Director of the Program on US-Japan Relations, Princeton University, Tenured Professor of Political and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School KENNETH S. COURTIS Professor and First Vice-President of Deutsche Bank Group Asia GEORGE A. DE VOS Psychologist and Professor emeritus of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley ROBERT GILPIN is the Dwight D Eisenhour Professor of International Affairs at Princeton University DAVID D. HALE Chief Economist and Senior Vice-president of Kemper Financial Companies IVAN P. HALL was a Professor at Tsukuba, Keio and Gakushuin Universities DONALD C. HELLMAN Professor of International Studies and Political Science, Henry M Jackson School of International Studies and Seattle Director of the APEC Study Centre GAVAN MCCORMACK Professor of Japanese History, Division of Pacific and Asian History, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University TAKEYUKI TSUDA PhD candidate in anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.