Suchergebnisse

The French term radio trottoir, literally 'pavement radio' is best understood in the context of the oral traditions and respect for oral culture which modern Africa has inherited from its past. (SJO)

After holding power continuously from its inception in 1955 (with the exception of a ten-month hiatus in 1993-1994), Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost control of the national government decisively in September 2009. Despite its defeat, the LDP remains the most successful political party in a democracy in the post-World War II period. In The Rise and Fall of Japan's LDP, Ellis S. Krauss and Robert J. Pekkanen shed light on the puzzle of the LDP's long dominance and abrupt defeat. Several questions about institutional change in party politics are at the core of their investigation: What incentives do different electoral systems provide? How do politicians adapt to new incentives? How much does structure determine behavior, and how much opportunity does structure give politicians to influence outcomes? How adaptable are established political organizations?The electoral system Japan established in 1955 resulted in a half-century of "one-party democracy." But as Krauss and Pekkanen detail, sweeping political reforms in 1994 changed voting rules and other key elements of the electoral system. Both the LDP and its adversaries had to adapt to a new system that gave citizens two votes: one for a party and one for a candidate. Under the leadership of the charismatic Koizumi Junichiro, the LDP managed to maintain its majority in the Japanese Diet, but his successors lost popular support as opposing parties learned how to operate in the new electoral environment. Drawing on the insights of historical institutionalism, Krauss and Pekkanen explain how Japanese politics functioned before and after the 1994 reform and why the persistence of party institutions (factions, PARC, koenkai) and the transformed role of party leadership contributed both to the LDP's success at remaining in power for fifteen years after the reforms and to its eventual downfall. In an epilogue, the authors assess the LDP's prospects in the near and medium term

Japan is one of the most media-saturated societies in the world. The circulations of its "big five" national newspapers dwarf those of any major American newspaper. NHK, its public service broadcasting agency, is second only to the BBC in size. And it has a full range of commercial television stations, high-brow and low-brow magazines (from widely read intellectual journals to the ubiquitous manga, or adult comic books), and a large antimainstream media and mini-media. Japanese elites, surveys show, rate the mass media as the most influential group in Japanese society. But what role do they play in political life? Whose interests do the media serve? As Japan's critics often hold, are they mainly servants of the state? Or are they watchdogs on behalf of the public, as the media themselves claim and as suggested by their role in uncovering late eighties and early nineties political scandals and in triggering political change in the summer of 1993? And what effects do the media have on the political beliefs and behavior of ordinary Japanese people? These questions, central for interpreting the media's role in any industrial society, are the focus of this collection of essays by leading political scientists, sociologists, social psychologists, and journalists. Japan's unique kisha (press) club system, its powerful media business organizations, the uses of the media by Japan's wily bureaucrats, and the role of the media in everything from political scandals to shaping public opinion, are among the many subjects of this insightful and provocative book

Koizumi Junichiro, Japan's prime minister from 2001 to 2006, broke the mould of post-war Japanese foreign policy. His successor Abe Shinzo looks set to build upon this legacy: after the 'depression diplomacy' of the 1990s Japan has returned as a diplomatic and military as well as economic power. The United States has welcomed and encouraged this development, but it may get more than it bargained for. Japan is certainly re-emerging as a more confident partner, but it could also become more erratic, demanding and unpredictable. (Survival / SWP)

The study of political socialization has long neglected the influence of adult roles on adult political belief and behavior, in favor of attention to the supposedly formative experiences of childhood and adolescence. Similarly, although we have numerous studies of the background and politicization of the student activists of the 1960s, we have almost no systematic evidence of how the leftism and activism of their college years has weathered the transition to adulthood. This article presents a study of the relative effects of adult role experience—occupation, family, and voluntary associational membership—versus the enduring influence of college political beliefs and participation on samples of student activists and nonactivists of the 1960s in the United States and Japan. Citing the methodological weaknesses of earlier political socialization research, the authors use true longitudinal data and causal modeling and multivariate data analysis techniques. The results indicate that, although college identification and behavior continued to some extent into adulthood, adult role socialization also had strong and independent effects, but effects that varied greatly across the two countries. Differences in adult role cultures in the United States and Japan are used to explain these cross-national variations and their consequences for patterns of political protest in the two countries.

Career experiences and political views of individuals who were college student activists in the 1960's.

This article examines party discipline and party cohesion or defection, offering as an illustration the rebellion over postal privatization in 2005 by members of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). It explores the importance of party rules - especially the seniority rule and policy specialization for district rewards - as intervening variables between election rules and party defection in a decentralized and diverse party. It is argued that in such cases, party rules like seniority can help prevent defection. When these rules are changed, as in the postal case of 2005, defection is more probable, but it is found that the relationship between defection and seniority is likely to be curvilinear, and also that the curvilinearity is conditional upon each legislator's having different incentives for vote, policy and office. (British Journal of Political Science / FUB)

How do electoral incentives affect legislative organization? Through an analysis of Japan's mixed-member electoral system, we demonstrate that legislative organization is strongly influenced not only by the individual legislators reelection incentives but also by their interest in their party gaining power and maintaining a strong party label. Electorally vulnerable legislators are given choice legislative positions to enhance their prospects at the polls, whereas (potential) party leaders disproportionately receive posts with greater influence on the party's overall reputation. Members of Parliament elected from proportional representation (PR) lists and in single member districts also receive different types of posts, reflecting their distinct electoral incentives. Even small variations in electoral rules can have important consequences for legislative organization. In contrast to Germany's compensatory mixed-member system, Japan's parallel system (combined with a "best loser" or "zombie" provision) generates incentives for the party to allocate posts relating to the distribution of particularistic goods to those elected in PR.