Reinventing Japan From Merchant Nation to Civic Nation

The merchant nation of Japan's fall from grace in recent years has lead to a major realignment of state - society power relations with welcomed democratizing effects.This book is about the emerging civic face of twenty-first century Japan.It illustrates how new and emerging relationships between civil society groups and local government are becoming key elements of Japan's changing structures of governance. It closely examines such issue areas as e-democracy, decentralization, foreign workers, NGOs and the role of women, which have converged to open the way for reinventing Japan.It demonstrates how the expansion of associational life in Japan is surely heading for a more autonomous civil society.

Yasuo Takao is Senior Lecturer in political science at Curtin University of Technology.  His current research interest resides in the area of society-initiated transnationalism at the grassroots level in Japan.  His recent publications include: sole-authored books, National Integration and Local Power in Japan and Is Japan Really Remilitarizing?: The Politics of Norm Formation and Change, a sole-authored monograph, Building Transnational Civil Society: Can Japanese Local Government Bring it Together?, and numerous articles on local governance and transnationalism in international academic journals.