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This Open Access book provides a comprehensive analysis of political reforms in Japan since the 1990s, emphasizing the role of ideas in shaping their goals and outcomes. For more than fifteen years following the collapse of Japan’s economic bubble, politicians, business people and academics tackled a range of institutional reforms. The sweeping changes they enacted—covering almost all facets of the public sphere, including elections, public administration, courts and the central bank—fundamentally altered Japanese political processes and policies. Taken together, they arguably represent the final touches of Japan’s political modernization, which had been unfolding since the mid-19th century. Throughout the reform process, advocates were inspired by a combination of liberal and modernist ideas. This book examines those guiding concepts and illustrates the often messy process of applying them to real-world institutions. While most reforms began from common goals, they ultimately produced different—and frequently unexpected—institutional outcomes, which continue to shape Japanese politics. By focusing on the relationship between the ideas and processes that shaped Japan’s reforms, this book presents a broad vision of institutional change in comparative politics.
A radical reinterpretation of Adam Smith that challenges economists, moral philosophers, political theorists, and intellectual historians to rethink him—and why he matters Adam Smith has long been recognized as the father of modern economics. More recently, scholars have emphasized his standing as a moral philosopher—one who was prepared to critique markets as well as to praise them. But Smith’s contributions to political theory are still underappreciated and relatively neglected. In this bold, revisionary book, Paul Sagar argues that not only have the fundamentals of Smith’s political thought been widely misunderstood, but that once we understand them correctly, our estimations of Smith as economist and as moral philosopher must radically change. Rather than seeing Smith either as the prophet of the free market, or as a moralist who thought the dangers of commerce lay primarily in the corrupting effects of trade, Sagar shows why Smith is more thoroughly a political thinker who made major contributions to the history of political thought. Smith, Sagar argues, saw war, not commerce, as the engine of political change and he was centrally concerned with the political, not moral, dimensions of—and threats to—commercial societies. In this light, the true contours and power of Smith’s foundational contributions to western political thought emerge as never before. Offering major reinterpretations of Smith’s political, moral, and economic ideas, Adam Smith Reconsidered seeks to revolutionize how he is understood. In doing so, it recovers Smith’s original way of doing political theory, one rooted in the importance of history and the necessity of maintaining a realist sensibility, and from which we still have much to learn.
Richard Nixon's notoriety regarding Watergate and foreign policy obscured the domestic achievements of his administration. Now, in this major work of revisionist history, Joan Hoff asserts that the late president's reforms in welfare, civil rights, and economic and environmental policy greatly overshadowed the things for which he is better remembered.
Bringing together a broad group of leading scholars, government officials, and corporate representatives, this book provides a critical analysis of recent regulatory reform efforts. The contributors focus on social and environmental regulation as they evaluate problems of costly and ineffective regulatory measures. They argue that, although some pr
This study offers a critique of international relations from the perspective of a pre-modern Chinese thinker, Gongsun Long. It explores both the potential and the danger of the post-Western quest for geo-cultural distinction.
Lobbying Reconsidered: Politics Under the Influence, reveals how lobbying is a complex process that involves more than just relationships, friends, access, favors, and influence. This book offers a broader perspective on this important dimension of American public policymaking. As a person who straddles the worlds of Washington insider and interest group scholar, author Gary Andres hopes to use his experience and insight in in the lobbying world to help readers navigate beyond the conventional wisdom, and guide them to a deeper, broader understanding.
Peters and Hunold (American politics at the U. of Pittsburgh and political science at Drexel U., respectively) analyze changes in European politics and their consequences on the workplace, voting, foreign policy, models of reform, and other issues. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Here is a vividly written and compact overview of the brilliant, flawed, and quarrelsome group of lawyers, politicians, merchants, military men, and clergy known as the "Founding Fathers"--who got as close to the ideal of the Platonic "philosopher-kings" as American or world history has ever seen. In The Founding Fathers Reconsidered, R. B. Bernstein reveals Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, and the other founders not as shining demigods but as imperfect human beings--people much like us--who nevertheless achieved political greatness. They emerge here as men who sought to transcend their intellectual world even as they were bound by its limits, men who strove to lead the new nation even as they had to defer to the great body of the people and learn with them the possibilities and limitations of politics. Bernstein deftly traces the dynamic forces that molded these men and their contemporaries as British colonists in North America and as intellectual citizens of the Atlantic civilization's Age of Enlightenment. He analyzes the American Revolution, the framing and adoption of state and federal constitutions, and the key concepts and problems--among them independence, federalism, equality, slavery, and the separation of church and state--that both shaped and circumscribed the founders' achievements as the United States sought its place in the world.
Stalin’s death is considered a mayor caesura in Soviet history. In its aftermath, the state had to redefine itself in political, economic, social and cultural matters. This volume includes various contributions of new international research that critically engage with questions of change and continuities in the fields of politics, modernization and social communities. In addition to Stalinism, processes such as urbanization therefore move into the center of interpreting Soviet history. The history of the Soviet 1950s and 60s is not only crucial for understanding glasnost and perestroika but contemporary Russia as well.
Key topics in the ongoing evolution of environmental governance, with new and updated material. This survey of current issues and controversies in environmental policy and management is unique in its thematic mix, broad coverage of key debates, and in-depth analysis. The contributing authors, all distinguished scholars or practitioners, offer a comprehensive examination of key topics in the continuing evolution of environmental governance, with perspectives from public policy, public administration, political science, international relations, sustainability theory, environmental economics, risk analysis, and democratic theory. The second edition of this popular reader has been thoroughly revised, with updated coverage and new topics. The emphasis has shifted from sustainability to include sustainable cities, from domestic civic environmentalism to global civil society, and from global interdependence to the evolution of institutions of global environmental governance. A general focus on devolution of authority in the United States has been sharpened to address the specifics of contested federalism and fracking, and the treatment of flexibility now explores the specifics of regulatory innovation and change. New chapters join original topics such as environmental justice and collaboration and conflict resolution to address highly salient and timely topics: energy security; risk assessment, communication, and technology innovation; regulation-by-revelation; and retrospective regulatory analysis. The topics are organized and integrated by the book's “3R” framework: reconceptualizing governance to reflect ecological risks and interdependencies better, reconnecting with stakeholders, and reframing administrative rationality. Extensive cross-references pull the chapters together. A broad reference list enables readers to pursue topics further. Contributors Regina S. Axelrod, Robert F. Durant, Kirk Emerson, Daniel J. Fiorino, Anne J. Kantel, David M. Konisky, Michael E. Kraft, Jennifer Kuzma, Richard Morgenstern, Tina Nabatchi, Rosemary O'Leary, Barry Rabe, Walter A. Rosenbaum, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Paul Wapner