From the Publisher
Widely recognized both in America and Japan for his insider knowledge and penetrating analyses of Japanese politics, Gerald Curtis is the political analyst best positioned to explore the complexities of the Japanese political scene today. Curtis has personally known most of the key players in Japanese politics for more than thirty years, and he draws on their candid comments to provide invaluable and graphic insights into the world of Japanese politics. By relating the behavior of Japanese political leaders to the institutions within which they must operate, Curtis makes sense out of what others have regarded as enigmatic or illogical. He utilizes his skills as a scholar and his knowledge of the inner workings of the Japanese political system to highlight the commonalities of Japanese and Western political practices while at the same time explaining what sets Japan apart.
Curtis rejects the notion that cultural distinctiveness and consensus are the defining elements of Japan's political decision making, emphasizing instead the competition among and the profound influence of individuals operating within particular institutional contexts on the development of Japan's politics. The discussions featured here — as they survey both the detailed events and the broad structures shaping the mercurial Japanese political scene of the 1990s — draw on extensive conversations with virtually all of the decade's political leaders and focus on the interactions among specific politicians as they struggle for political power.
The Logic of Japanese Politics covers such important political developments as
• the Liberal Democratic Party's egress from power in1993, after reigning for nearly four decades, and their crushing defeat in the "voters' revolt" of the 1998 upper-house election;
• the formation of the 1993 seven party coalition government led by prime minister Morihiro Hosokawa and its collapse eight months later;
• the historic electoral reform of 1994 which replaced the electoral system operative since the adoption of universal manhood suffrage in 1925; and
• the decline of machine politics and the rise of the mutohaso — the floating, nonparty voter.
Scrutinizing and interpreting a complex and changing political system, this multi-layered chronicle reveals the dynamics of democracy at work — Japanese-style. In the process, The Logic of Japanese Politics not only offers a fascinating picture of Japanese politics and politicians but also provides a framework for understanding Japan's attempts to surmount its present problems, and helps readers gain insight into Japan's future.
Ezra Vogel
In this vivid, scholarly account of the end of one-party dominance and the search for a new political order Curtis provides fascinating accounts of political maneuvering which he places in the perspective of comparative politics.
Steven K. Vogel
[A] senior statesman in the field . . . . Curtis does not shun the complexity and uncertainty of post-1993 Japanese politics, but revels in it. He has produced a remarkable book that presents the political history of the 1990s in its full complexity.
John E. Tropman
Logic is a fine book, in fact an outstanding one. The jacket blurbs are, for once, right in their enthusiasm...For the Japanese scholar, the detail-oriented reader and anyone who wants an insider's view, written by an outsider, this book has no current peer.
Andrew DeWitt
There are no scholars better suited than [Curtis] to show the way, given his more than three decades of research on Japan and his unparalleled access to many of the country's major political figures.
T. J. Pempel
Few Westerners have a longer or deeper familiarity with the personalities of Japanese party politics than Gerald Curtis. In The Logic of Japanese Politics he provides a masterfully nuanced analysis of the complex interplay between Japanese leaders and institutions during the 1990s. This is an essential book for anyone anxious to follow the political developments of this dynamic decade.
E. J. Dionne Jr.
The Logic of Japanese Politics offers a hugely fascinating tour through contemporary Japanese politics. Gerry Curtis makes the mysterious understandable while shaking up your view of what might have seemed obvious. Specialists will appreciate Curtis´s expertise, but anyone who loves politics will be grateful for this insightful look at how power works in Japan.
Robert D. Hormats
Gerald Curtis has produced a brilliantly written, powerfully argued, and profoundly insightful analysis of the complex cultural, institutional, and human factors that shape policy in Japan. . . . This is a must-read for anyone who seeks to genuinely understand America´s largest overseas trading partner and major Pacific ally.
Peter Drysdale
Gerald Curtis is the author of an earlier classic, Election Campaigning Japanese Style, on the electioneering process in Japan. He has done it again with this book -encyclopedic in its coverage of Japanese politics in the 1990s and heuristic in its interpretation of the changes that led to the breakdown of the 1955 system and the emergence of Japan´s new politics at the end of the century. It is an indispensable reference for anyone who needs to know how the political system in Japan works today and needs to understand its uncertain future.
Malcolm Trevor
Following the collapse of the 'bubble economy' in the 1990s and the ensuing problems, Curtis gives a valuable analysis of the shifting coalitions and political machinations in Japan up to 1998.
John Campbell
Curtis explains the twists and turns of Japanese politics in the 1990s with the canny eye of the insider´s insider, and brings his political science wisdom to bear on the deeper trends of Japanese politics and society.
David Halberstam
No American has done a better job of explaining the seemingly inexplicable world of Japanese politics than Professor Gerry Curtis of Columbia. His latest book, his best, is extremely valuable, concise, thoughtful, and very well written.
Booknews
Curtis (political science, Columbia U., and former director of the East Asian Institute) uses his personal knowledge of key Japanese political figures to illuminate the complexities of the contemporary Japanese political scene, highlighting the commonalities as well as the distinguishing features of Japanese and Western political practices, and refuting certain conventional assumptions. His discussion details and interprets both the events and the broad structures shaping contemporary Japanese politics. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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