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GREEN POLITICS IN JAPAN. By Peng-Er Lam. London and New York: Routledge Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Studies Series. 1999. xiv, 226 pp. (Tables.) US$90. OO/Cdn$135. 00, cloth. ISBN 0-415-19938-7.
The Japanese have increasingly expressed a greater concern for postmaterial issues, particularly environmental problems. Yet, to what degree has this been translated into political support for Green parties, along the lines of the European Greens? This book poses the question "under what circumstances can alternative political parties prosper in Japan?" In general, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) have dominated post-war party politics in Japan, and an "iron law of oligopoly" appears to have kept these two major parties at the forefront over the last fifty years or so. Still, in Europe new style political Green parties have evolved with very different organisation principles and modus operandi. By comparison, Green parties in Japan are weak. Lam in his study traces the evolution of the most popular Green party, an ecological party known as the Network Movement (NET), which from the 1980s launched successful campaigns in local elections throughout Japan's major cities, yet so far has failed to capture a single national government seat.
On the surface, NET appears to...