Japan in Crisis: What Will it Take for Japan to Rise Again?

This volume is the result of a conference held by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in November, 2011. Organized in the aftermath of the crisis presented by the triple disaster that struck the Tohoku region of Japan on March 11 of the previous year: an earthquake, a tsunami, and a nuclear meltdown. The conference had as its overarching theme 'Japan in Crisis: What Will It Take for Japan to Rise Again?' Authors began by addressing the question of what it would take for Japan to 'recover' from not only from 3/11 but also more than 20 years of nearly unilateral economic stagnation, political fumbling, and deterioration in the country's regional and global influence. The Asan Institute for Policy Studies is an independent think tank located in Seoul, South Korea, that provides innovative policy solutions and spearheads public discourse on many of the core issues that Korea, East Asia, and the global community face. The goal of the institute is not only to offer policy solutions but also to train experts in public diplomacy and related fields in order to strengthen Korea's capacity to better tackle some of the most pressing problems affecting the country, the region and the world today.

Table of Contents:
PREFACE - Hahm Chaibong INTRODUCTION - T.J. Pempel PART I: STARTING WITH FUKUSHIMA 1. The Fukushima Nuclear Crisis and Its Political and Social Implications; Masakatsu Ota PART II: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SLOW GROWTH 2. Japan's Economic Crisis: More Chronic than Acute - So Far; Gregory W. Noble 3. Japan's Fiscal Challenge: The Political Economy of Reform; William W. Grimes PART III: HURDLING POLITICAL OBSTACLES 4. Governance Crisis in Japan: Return to the Basic Building Blocks of Democracy; Tetsundo Iwakuni 5. The Ghost of the Second Republic? The Structural Weakness of Parliamentary Bicameralism in Japan; Jun Saito PART IV: TOWARD A MULTICULTURAL SOLUTION? 6. Embracing Asia: Japan's Expat Politics; Kim Mikyoung PART V: IMPROVING RELATIONS WITH THE ASIA-PACIFIC NEIGHBORS 7. What Will It Take for Japan to Rise Again? Vision, Regional Initiative, and Japan-Korea Relations; Kazuhiko Togo 8. Regional Situation Awareness as a Basis for Northeast Asian Regional Cooperation in Dealing with Transnational Nuclear Disasters; Kim Sok Chul 9. The US-Japan Alliance and Japan's Future; Michael Auslin 10. An Economic Step toward Revitalizing Japan and US-Japan Ties; T.J. Pempel INDEX

About the Author :
T.J. Pempel - T. J. Pempel (Ph.D., Columbia) is Jack M. Forcey of Political Science in U.C. Berkeley's Department of Political Science which he jointed in July 2001. He served as director of the Institute of East Asian Studies from 2002 until 2006. There he held the Il Han New Chair in Asian Studies. Just prior to coming to Berkeley, he was at the University of Washington at Seattle where he was the Boeing Professor of International Studies in the Jackson School of International Studies and an adjunct professor in Political Science. From 1972 to 1991, he was on the faculty at Cornell University; he was also Director of Cornell's East Asia Program. He has also been a faculty member at the University of Colorado and the University of Wisconsin. Professor Pempel's research and teaching focus on comparative politics, political economy, contemporary Japan, and Asian regionalism. His recent books include Remapping East Asia: The Construction of a Region (Cornell University Press), Beyond Bilateralism: U.S.-Japan Relations in the New Asia-Pacific (Stanford University Press), The Politics of the Asian Economic Crisis; and Regime Shift: Comparative Dynamics of the Japanese Political Economy. In spring of 2012 his latest book, Security Cooperation in Northeast Asia will be published by Routledge. In addition, he has published over one hundred scholarly articles and chapters in books. Professor Pempel is on the editorial boards of a dozen professional journals, and serves on various committees of the American Political Science Association, the Association for Asian Studies, and the International Studies Association Council. He is currently doing research on various problems associated with Asian regionalism and security as well as a book on dismantling the developmental state. Hahm Chaibong - received a B.A. in economics from Carleton College and a M.A. and a Ph.D. in political science from the Johns Hopkins University. Masakatsu Ota - was a Fulbright Research Fellow from Japan, currently an Adjunct Fellow for the Program on Global Security and Disarmament. He is on leave from Kyodo News Service, where he is the chief correspondent in the Takamatsu branch office. Mr. Ota has served with Kyodo News Service since 1992, in the Hiroshima and Osaka branch offices. His research has focused on historical perspectives on the A-bomb drop on Hiroshima, including survivors and the controversy surrounding the exhibition of "Enola Gay" by the Smithsonian. He recently published his first book, called "Genealogy of Immunization." The book examines covert dealings between the Japanese Government and US occupation forces with respect to war crimes committed by the ex-Japanese medical army when it secretly conducted human testing on prisoners of war. Mr. Ota received his BA in International Political Science from Waseda University. Gregory W. Noble - William W. Grimes - Chair of International Relations; Professor of International Relations and Political Science. (BA, Yale University; MPA, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs; PhD, Princeton University) Specialization: Japanese and East Asian Political Economy, Japanese Politics, International Political Economy.