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Purnendra Jain and Takashi Inoguchi (eds), Japanese Politics Today: Beyond Karaoke Democracy? (Melbourne: Macmillan Education, 1997), 248 pp., $69.95 (hbk), ISBN 0 7329 4437 6, $34.95 (pbk), ISBN 0 7329 4438 4.
This book's first and foremost merit is its wealth of detailed information about what happened in Japanese politics between 1993 and 1995. During those three years, many aspects of Japanese politics went through dramatic changes. The book not only explains high-profile events in national politics such as the break-up of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its fall from power, the emergence of new political parties, the new electoral system, and the formation of three different coalition governments and their failure to deal with economic problems effectively (chapters by Jain, Stockwin, and Inoguchi), but also discusses changes that attracted little public attention outside Japan, such as changing practice in policy negotiations within governmental structures (Nakano), developments...