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.

Bong Youngshik is a Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Center for Foreign Policy at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. Before joining the Asan Institute, Dr. Bong was an assistant professor at American University's School of International Service in Washington D.C. from 2007-10. Dr. Bong was also a Freeman post-doctoral fellow at Wellesley College and Assistant Professor of Korean Studies at Williams College in Massachusetts. His research is focused on the interplay between nationalism and globalization on security issues including Dokdo and other island disputes in Asia, anti-Americanism and the U.S.-Korea Alliance. He holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in political science from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. from Yonsei University.

T.J. Pempel is the Jack M. Forcey Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He served as Director of the Institute of East Asian Studies from 2002-06. His research focuses on comparative politics, Japanese political economy, and Asian regional issues. His most recent books include Remapping East Asia: The Construction of a Region, Beyond Bilateralism: U.S.-Japan Relations in the New Asia-Pacific, and Security Cooperation in Northeast Asia. He received his B.S., M.A., and Ph.D. from Columbia University.

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