Japan’s first decade of the twenty-first century was both disappointing and bewildering, producing wildly contrasting evaluations. Many have come to call this period the “second lost decade,” characterized by policy paralysis and overall lackluster economic growth.

For those studying Japan more closely, however, the same decades reveal nothing short of a broad transformation in numerous core tenets of Japan’s postwar political economy. How can we best capture this transformation?

Each chapter in this volume examines a different aspect of Japan’s political economy within a longer historical trajectory, from multiple angles, to depict a flexible but resilient system. We characterize Japan’s process of change as syncretism—practices foreign, domestic, old and new were selectively adopted, mixed and matched, along the way creating a new and unique hybrid system.

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The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) came to power in 2009 with a commanding majority, ending fifty years of almost uninterrupted Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) rule. Then, in 2012, just over three years later, the DPJ lost power in an equally stunning landslide loss to the LDP. This volume examines the DPJ’s remarkable ascendance, its policies once in power, and its dramatic fall.

What explains the DPJ’s rapid rise to power? Why was policy change under the DPJ limited, despite high expectations and promises of bold reform? Why has the party been paralyzed by internecine conflict?

Chapters in the volume cover: DPJ candidate recruitment; the influence of media coverage; nationalization of elections; electoral system constraints on policy change; the role of third parties; municipal mergers; the role of women; transportation policy; fiscal decentralization; information technology; response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster; security strategy; and foreign policy. Japan under the DPJ makes important contributions to the study of Japanese politics, while drawing upon and advancing scholarship on a wider range of issues of interest to political scientists.

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South Korea remains a puzzle for political economists. The country has experienced phenomenal economic growth since the 1960s, but its upward trajectory has been repeatedly diverted by serious systemic crises, followed by spectacular recoveries. The recoveries are often the result of vigorous structural reforms that nonetheless retain many of South Korea's traditional economic institutions. How, then, can South Korea suffer from persistent systemic instability and yet prove so resilient? What remains the same and what changes?

The contributors to this volume consider the South Korean economy in its larger political context. Moving beyond the easy dichotomies—equilibrium vs. disequilibrium and stability vs. instability—they describe a complex and surprisingly robust economic and political system. Further, they argue that neither systemic challenges nor political pressures alone determine South Korea's stability and capacity for change. Instead, it is distinct patterns of interaction that shape this system's characteristics, development, and evolution.

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Coverage of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) all too often focuses solely on nuclear proliferation, military parades, and the personality cult around its leaders. As the British ambassador to North Korea, John Everard had the rare experience of living there from 2006, when the DPRK conducted its first nuclear test, to 2008, just before Kim Jong Il’s stroke. While stationed in Pyongyang, Everard’s travels around the DPRK provided him with numerous opportunities to meet and converse with North Koreans.

Only Beautiful, Please goes beyond official North Korea to unveil the human dimension of life in that hermetic nation. Everard recounts his impressions of the country and its people, his interactions with them, and his observations on their way of life. He provides a picture as well of the life of foreigners in this closed society, considers how the DPRK evolved to its current state, and discusses the failure of current approaches to tackle the challenges that it throws up. The book is illustrated with striking and never-before-seen photographs taken by Everard during his stay in North Korea.

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Half a century since the adoption of democracy in South Korea, the Korean people's high hopes for popular governance have not been met. There is widespread skepticism about what Korea's implementation of democracy has brought to the nation and whether it will be able to respond effectively in the future to the demands of an evolving society and world. What accounts for the conservative complacency of Korea's democratic system? Why do democratic administrations in Korea seem so incompetent? Do political parties in Korea legitimately represent the voice of civil society in legislating and policymaking on issues with a direct impact on the freedom and welfare of the people?

Taking an issue-oriented approach, renowned Korean political scientist Jang-Jip Choi endeavors to answer such questions as he examines the origins, structures, and conflicts of conservative democracy in South Korea as well as democratization's impact on the state, economy, and civil society.

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More than two decades after the cold war ended elsewhere, it continues undiminished on the Korean Peninsula. The division of the Korean nation into competing North and South Korean states and the destructive war that followed constitute one of the great, and still unresolved, tragedies of the twentieth century. Peacemaker is the memoir of Lim Dong-won, former South Korean unification minister and architect of Nobel Peace Prize winner Kim Dae-jung's Sunshine policy toward North Korea.

As both witness and participant, Lim traces the process of twenty years of diplomatic negotiations with North Korea, from the earliest rounds of inter-Korean talks through the historic inter-Korean summit of June 2000 and beyond. Peacemaker offers a fascinating inside look into the recent history of North-South Korea relations and provides important lessons for policymakers and citizens who seek to understand and resolve the tragic--and increasingly dangerous--situation on the Korean Peninsula.

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Why should Americans worry about South Korean security? The answer is clear: North Korea, and beyond. Most international attention to the North Korea problem has focused on U.S. policy, but South Korea's longterm role may in fact be more important. South Korea's security is vital to peace and stability, not only in Northeast Asia but also the wider world.

Written by eminent scholars, practitioners, and policymakers with extensive on-the-ground experience, Beyond North Korea assesses the varied contexts—regional and global, traditional and nontraditional—that underpin South Korea's varied security challenges. What are South Korea's military requirements? How do relations with its neighbors enhance or undermine its position? What economic, environmental, and demographic factors come into play? This book reveals that South Korea's national security rests as much on sound domestic policy choices as on successful interstate relations. 

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Beyond North Korea is the first in a new series of policy-related studies on contemporary South Korea sponsored by the Koret Foundation of San Francisco.

As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) set about reforming its centrally planned economy, it faced the thorny policy question of how to reform its state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Should it support a shift from public to private ownership of the means of production? Such a shift would challenge not only the CCP's socialist ideology but also its very legitimacy. Mixing the business of corporate restructuring with the politics of socialism presented nothing short of a policy nightmare.

With policy-relevant acuity, the contributors to this wide-ranging volume address the questions about reform programs that have plagued China—and East Asia more broadly—since the 1990s. While China, Japan, and South Korea have all been criticized for implementing reform too slowly or too selectively, this volume delves into the broader contexts underlying certain institutional decisions. The book seeks to show that seemingly different political economies actually share surprising similarities, and problems. While Going Private in China sheds new light on China's corporate restructuring, it also offers new perspectives on how we think about the process of institutional change.

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In the past fifty years, two factors have led to global population aging: a decline in fertility to levels close to—or even below—replacement and a decline in mortality that has increased world average life expectancy by nearly 67 percent. As the population skews toward fewer young people and more elderly who live longer postretirement lives, demographic changes—labor force participation, savings, economic growth, living arrangements, marriage markets, and social policy—are transforming society in fundamental, irreversible ways.

Nowhere are these effects of aging and demographic change more acute—nor their long-term effects more potentially significant—than in the Asia-Pacific region. How will these developments impact the economies and social protection systems of Japan, South Korea, China, and, by extension, the United States?

To assess this question, Aging Asia showcases cutting-edge, policy-relevant research. The first section focuses on demographic trends and their economic implications; the second section approaches select topics from a global comparative perspective, including social insurance financing, medical costs, and long-term care.

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China is transforming itself, and the world is adapting in response. Profound forces have reshaped the country's socioeconomic and political landscapes, but they have also brought challenges—growing pains—that China must face if it is to continue its upward trajectory.

Despite its successes, China is experiencing sharp growing pains. Rising levels of protest have accompanied the country's wrenching structural transformation. Corruption has prompted some observers to claim that the Chinese government is nothing short of a "predatory state." Legal reform continues to languish. Given that such challenges remain, can it be said that China's structural changes have succeeded? Or is the country trapped in transition?

"Growing Pains deserves the attention of every scholar interested in contemporary China." -Scott Kennedy, Indiana University

Growing Pains contains new analytical and empirical research from preeminent scholars working on contemporary China. These scholars identify which of the many problems thought to threaten China's reforms are not as serious as some interpreters claim, as well as those that have already been solved. Further, they point to other high-profile challenges, some of which truly are serious and loom on the horizon. With thoughtful, nuanced analysis, the contributors tackle thorny issues in China's ongoing reforms—employment, land policy, village elections, family planning, health care, social inequality, and environmental degradation—and use rich survey data and on-the-ground observation to assess the severity of the problems and the likelihood of near-term solutions.

Moving beyond the hype and hysteria that often characterize conversations about contemporary China, Growing Pains seeks to present not an optimistic or pessimistic perspective but rather an objective, empirically based view of the country's transition.

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