Book Reviews Daniel P. ALDRICH/Harvard University Japanese Governance: Beyond Japan Inc., edited by Jennifer Amyx and Peter Drysdale. New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003, xv+208 pp., $80.00 (hardcover ISBN 0-415-30469-5) doi:10.1093/ssjj/jyh044 Two schools dominate the interpretation of the post-bubble Japanese political economy. One views the period as a ‘lost decade’ primarily owing to low economic growth, four separate recessions, and non-performing bank loans (Saxonhouse and Stern, forthcoming; Lincoln 2003). Formally effective Japanese institutions seem weighted down by ‘crony capitalism’, opaque financial accounting systems, and intrusive bureaucratic regulation. Others draw more positive conclusions about the period, finding the seeds of radical political and economic transformation in increasing numbers of tax-payer lawsuits and freedom of information acts (Marshall 2003) along with scores of citizen referenda (Jumin Sankai Yushiki Kaigi 2001) and the implementation of corporate restructuring (Tiberghien 2003). This book, focusing on that period, brings together scholars from a variety of fields and positions in an attempt to capture the effects of more open economic and political competition on Japan’s economic and political institutions. Foremost in the minds of the contributors is the perennial question of whether or not Japan is changing in the face of new and increased domestic and international pressures. For researchers interested in Japan, Edward Seidensticker’s whimsical saying that ‘[t]he relationship between tradition and change in Japan has always been complicated by the fact that change is itself a tradition’ (Richie 1995: 15) will continue to reverberate strongly. This volume, which grew out of a 1999 conference at The Australian National University, joins with other edited volumes in its focus on the transformation (or lack thereof) within Japanese economic and political institutions in response to internal and external forces (Carlile and Tilton 1998; Schaede and Grimes 2003). The authors take up a variety of positions on the amount of change, if any, which occurred during the 1990s. Evidence in a number of chapters supports the argument that, despite some dramatic institutional changes, the impact of those shifts has been at best incremental. J. A. A. Stockwin and Aurelia George Mulgan provide detailed summaries of changes and continuities within the electoral arena. Stockwin concludes that, despite the implementation in 1994 of a change from the postwar single non-transferable vote (SNTV) in multi-member constituencies (MMC) system to one involving both single member constituencies and proportional representation blocs, ‘the effects of the chang- ing of the Lower House electoral system have been quite limited’ (p. 15). In a similar tone, Mulgan argues that while the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has been forced to find coalition partners since its loss of a clear majority in the early 1990s, a major change—defined as ‘the emergence of a unified and effective excluded opposition’—is unlikely to occur (p. 48). Like Steve Vogel (1996), Gregory W. Noble finds that efforts to reduce bureaucratic influence over policy-making through reorganization of the bureaucracies and increasing transparency in procedure ‘have not only failed Social Science Japan Journal, page 1 of 3 © Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo 2004 Social Science Japan Journal Advance Access published September 3, 2004