Democracy in Japan

the long version

In Democracy in Japan, Frank McNeil, a veteran American diplomat with extensive experience in Japan, takes a fresh look at the country's democratic tradition - its troubled past and uncertain present. McNeil also examines alternative scenarios for Japan's future and outlines likely outcomes. Japan is one of the world's dominant economic powers, making the crisis in its democratic institutions a global concern. How deep are the roots of democracy? Is Japan changing, and will much needed democratic reforms prosper? Can this self-absorbed country shed more of its insularity? Is a return to militarism a possibility? What can Japan do to ensure progress and stability in the post-Cold War world? McNeil's critical but sympathetic assessment is based on ten years of living in Japan and on recent, extensive research. He conducted wide-ranging conversations with local and national political figures, among them former prime ministers; people in business, the media, and academia; grassroots activists; and ordinary Japanese. Refusing to hold Japan to a higher standard than Euro-American democracies apply to themselves, he traces the roots of Japan's democratic institutions in the century before the postwar American occupation and makes a case that tectonic changes in society are forcing Japan toward greater openness and institutional renewal, the inertial forces of bureaucracy and custom notwithstanding.