This book provides an updated and comprehensive review of the development of Japan's local government system over the past half century. It corrects the view that Japan is over-centralized by providing examples of expanding local government autonomy over time. Such examples include the success of local initiatives in anti-pollution, healthcare, and welfare policies. It also shows that gradual and controlled decentralization, as practised in Japan, has helped avoid coordination problems while providing time and resources for local governments to build capacity to undertake development projects, programmes, and planning. In so doing, it offers an alternative to the view that maximum autonomy quickly granted is the best way to develop local governments.

Tracing the history of feminism in Japan from the end of the nineteenth century to the present, Vera Mackie offers a fascinating account of those who rebelled against convention in the dissemination of ideas which challenged accepted ways of thinking about women, men and society. This carefully documented analysis is for students of feminism and related areas where nothing comparable is currently available.

This book analyses the way in which the Japanese Civil Service has contributed to Japan's economic growth and the lessons that experience may offer for other developing countries.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1997.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1997.