I'm confused. On the one hand, we're told Japan has undergone tumultuous change since the beginning of the '90s. The Liberal Democratic Party lost its 38-year-long hold on power, a world-beating economy continues to grind through a seemingly endless recession, unemployment has reached postwar highs, and the once-peerless bureaucracy has lost its shine. Its confidence shattered, the entire country seems to have lost its way.
But before I get comfortable with that idea, other observers peel away another layer of reality. They point out that the LDP is back in power, and the stage is set for economic recovery. Yes, unemployment is at record levels, but the much-hailed restructuring is no more than the usual cyclical retrenchment. And with the bureaucracy and other remnants of the old order fighting systemic reform, recovery will allow them to fend off any real threat to their grip on "the system."
T.J. Pempel, Boeing Professor of International Studies at the University of Washington, aims to set the record straight in "Regime Shift," his new study of the changes in Japan. As the title suggests, he belongs to the first school.