Description
This book offers an empirical and theoretical study of the Koizumi administration, covering such issues as the characteristics of its political style, its domestic and foreign policies, and its larger historical significance. The key questions that guide its approach are: what enabled Koizumi to exercise unusually strong leadership, and what structural transformations of Japanese politics did he achieve? Uchiyama looks at policy-making processes, newly created institutional arenas such as the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, Koizumi's populist strategy, foreign policy, and neo-liberal convictions to assess the historical significance of his administration and seek out the basis for its wide public support. Finally, the book undertakes a normative evaluation of the merits and demerits of the Koizumi administration's political style, and compares it with the Abe and Fukuda administrations that came after.
This book offers an empirical and theoretical study of the Koizumi administration, covering such issues as the characteristics of its political style, its domestic and foreign policies, and its larger historical significance. The key questions that guide its approach are: what enabled Koizumi to exercise unusually strong leadership, and what structural transformations of Japanese politics did he achieve? Uchiyama looks at policy-making processes, newly created institutional arenas such as the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, Koizumi's populist strategy, foreign policy, and neo-liberal convictions to assess the historical significance of his administration and seek out the basis for its wide public support. Finally, the book undertakes a normative evaluation of the merits and demerits of the Koizumi administration's political style, and compares it with the Abe and Fukuda administrations that came after. This book will be of interest to scholars and students with an interest in comparative politics, administrative reform, and contemporary Japan. Review: Uchiyama sees Koizumi's ability to seize upon the expanded prerogatives of the prime minister as a function of his political orientation, a Japanese-style Thatcherism, and his leadership style. Koizumi's call for reform of Japan's financial and health care systems and the privatization of significant government-run enterprises tapped into the public's search for an alternative solution to existing social and economic ills. This work is highly recommended for private collections and library collections on Japan. Highly recommended. Graduate, research, and professional collections. J. M. Peek, Glenville State College, Choice Reviews Online, www.cro2.org Detail is quite literally the word for this book as, throughout the chapters, there is an immense amount of information... the book's strongest features are its detailed description of the Koizumi era and its perceptive analysis of the outcome of his time in power... Its value is in its detail and the way it attempts to explain Koizumi. - Sarah Hyde, Asian Affairs, Nov 2011
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