This book emphasizes change over continuity in Japanese policymaking. It argues that Japan's Big Bang financial reforms emerged out of a policymaking process that deviated radically from past patterns. Performance failures, scandals and fluidity in party politics led the Ministry of Finance to promote reforms that otherwise would have been opposed.

In 1996, the Japanese government introduced a policy package initiating massive deregulation and liberalization in the nation's financial sector, referred to as Japan's financial 'Big Bang.' This book argues that the emergence of the Big Bang Initiative poses numerous challenges to conventional interpretations of Japanese politics and represents a clear case of institutional change in Japanese finance. Whereas many observers stress continuity in Japanese politics, this book argues that the emergence in the 1990s of performance failures and scandals attributed to the bureaucracy, as well as the increase in the likelihood of a change in government in this period, led policymaking patterns surrounding the Big Bang to differ radically from those dominating public policymaking in the past. These developments led to change in the nature of the alliance between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Ministry of Finance (MOF), to a shift in priorities within the MOF, and to a heightened role for the public in policymaking. The result was that the MOF, long perceived as 'entrenched' and seeking to maximize tangible tokens of organizational power, became more than willing to launch the Big Bang, despite the fact that these reforms would strip the ministry of many of its regulatory tools and sever the ministry's close ties with the financial sector. The book also argues that these new developments prevented financial industry actors from forestalling these reforms, as they had done in the past with other reforms similarly threatening the viability of weaker firms. The findings reveal that not only politicians, but also bureaucrats and interest groups, have reasons to pursue public support to enhance their respective political influence. Consequently, well-organized groups do not always prevail over the unorganized public.

A multidisciplinary forrum for communicating new information, new interpretations, and recent research results concerning Japan to the English-reading world.

Since the mid-1990s, China, Japan, and Korea have come under severe pressure to restructure and reform their economic systems. In fact, across East Asia governments are attempting to address their structural problems with a variety of reform programs. After several years of their efforts, clear patterns are now emerging. The authors of this book conclude that the interaction between financial globalization and domestic politics is the key to unlocking the reform process. In particular, they address issues important to the study of East Asian political economies--receptivity to financial globalization, financial integration, the convergence or divergence of their economic institutions, and the impact that institutional transformations will have on national competitive advantage and the global economic system. The book identifies and accounts for empirical regularities across East Asian countries and sectors, which previous studies have left largely unexplained. Contributors include Jongryn Mo (Yonsei University), Daniel I. Okimoto (Stanford University), Jennifer Amyx (University of Pennsylvania), Yves Tiberghien (Harvard University and University of British Columbia), Wonhyuk Lim (Korea Development Institute), and Joon-Ho Hahm (Yonsei University).

The world financial crisis of 1997-99 was the most important international economic event since the oil shocks of the 1970s and the associated debt crisis of the 1980s. What were its political causes and consequences? In particular, how did interest group coalitions and political institutions affect pre-crisis economic policies and post-crisis responses? This book focuses on how policymaking coalitions are formed and how political institutions mediate the pressure of rival coalitions. This approach is applied to 13 countries drawn from the main crisis-affected regions of the world economy East Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe."

This book explores how Japan balances her internal political economy with the external process of internationalisation by examining the following aspects of Japanese economic development planning: industrial policies and financial system; political economy in relation to the otherAsian countries; role in the global economy; and structural changes to Japan's post-Cold War economic development. This new edition tackles the problems and issues for Japan in the post-Sep 11 period, the election of Koizumi as prime minister, and the entry of China into the WTO. the author suggests that Japan may need to be more involved in the East Asian political economy at a time when the United States is more and more involved in the war against terrorism.

For students of international political economy, it is hard to ignore the growth, dynamism, and global impact of East Asia. Japan and China are two of the largest economies in the world, in a region now accounting for almost 30 percent more trade than the United States, Canada, and Mexico combined. What explains this increasing wealth and burgeoning power? In his new text, Ming Wan illustrates the diverse ways that the domestic politics and policies of countries within East Asia affect the region’s production, trade, exchange rates, and development, and are in turn affected by global market forces and international institutions. Unlike most other texts on East Asian political economy that are essentially comparisons of major individual countries, Wan effectively integrates key thematic issues and country-specific examples to present a comprehensive overview of East Asia’s role in the world economy. The text first takes a comparative look at the region’s economic systems and institutions to explore their evolution—a rich and complex story that looks beyond the response to Western pressures. Later chapters are organized around close examination of production, trade, finance, and monetary relations. While featuring extended discussion of China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, Wan is inclusive in his analysis, with coverage including Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, and the Philippines. The text is richly illustrated with more than fifty tables, figures, and maps that present the latest economic and political data to help students better visualize trends and demographics. Each chapter ends with extensive lists of suggested readings.