Arthur Stockwin, who was until recently Nissan Professor of Modern Japanese Studies at the University of Oxford, is the leading British expert on Japanese politics. His aim in the book reviewed here has been "to make at least partly comprehensible what to the outside observer (and indeed to many Japanese) often appears to be the great muddle of Japanese politics." His analysis is succinct and he has managed to unravel most of the complexities of Japanese politics.
This is the fourth edition of a work first produced in 1975. Many important changes have taken place in the way Japan is governed since the last edition in 1999. Much of the book attempts to assess these changes. This entailed rewriting a large part of the book, which now covers the political scene up to the appointment of Yasuo Fukuda as Japan's prime minister in 2007.
Stockwin identifies six broad areas of crisis. These are the crises of political power and accountability, political participation and noninvolvement in politics, the Constitution and political fundamentals, liberal versus illiberal ideas, the aging society and diverging "life-chances," and "national status and role." He considers all these crises as "relatively serious, actually or potentially," but Japan is "a major and dynamic economic power" with a basically democratic structure in which "the political system has repeatedly demonstrated its capacity to overcome crises and achieve reasonably satisfactory solutions to problems."