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"The past decade has seen a highly polarized debate concerning the Japanese fiscal system, particularly the role of income tax. Several authors argue that Japanese income tax is grossly unfair to low- and middle-income taxpayers, while others depict it as the most progressive in the industrialized world. Indeed, many critics claim that it is too progressive, and some even denounce it as 'socialist'. What is sorely lacking is an account that places contemporary Japanese taxation, and the larger fiscal system, in a comparative and historical context. That is what this paper offers. We argue that Japan's tax system is neither highly redistributive from the rich to the poor nor vice versa-at least in the traditional way that redistribution is understood in most Westerntax systems. Rather, Japan stands out for the scale of its inter-regional redistribution and the debilitating politico-economic incentives that stem from it."

"In the face of mounting pressure to reduce state intervention in the marketplace, Japanese bureaucrats have managed to preserve threatened government institutions such as administrative and financial ‘guidance’. They have done so by promoting the regionalization, or Asianization, of Japanese industry, dispensing advice and capital both to domestic manufacturers investing in the region and to host states in Asia that regulate such investment. Japan's experience suggests that, under certain conditions, regionalization may exert a force that runs counter to globalization."

"There has long been a conventional understanding that mass communication studies in Japan started with the introduction of theories of mass communication from the USA in the 1950s. However, as this paper demonstrates, a new academic paradigm, ‘newspaper studies’ (shinbungaku) had begun to take shape as early as the 1920s. At first the infant discipline occupied a very marginal position in mainstream academia, but as Japan prepared for war during the 1930s, giving information increasing strategic importance, these early media studies became associated with the state's mobilization for total war. This paper identifies three competing perspectives in pre‐war newspaper studies: an empiricist‐historical perspective, a constructionist perspective, and a Marxist perspective. It then demonstrates how the second perspective transformed itself into a logic of propaganda, and joined hands with ultra‐nationalism. The paper concludes by arguing that the parameters of the discursive space concerning mass media in the 1920s and 1930s survived to the post‐war era."

"This paper examines the division of Japanese conservatives into two political parties in the early post‐war period in order to understand why one party chose to enter a coalition government led by the Japanese Socialist Party in 1947 while the other refused. It argues that Japanese conservatives were divided between those who favoured heavy industry and state involvement in the solution of social and economic problems, and those who focused on the defence of the rural and traditional status quo. The war had augmented this division and moved the industrializing conservatives closer to the Socialists. This commonality of interests continued after the war and formed the political basis for an industrial–statist conservative alliance with the Socialists, which led to the formation of a centre–left coalition government in 1947."

"The objective of this article is to present a broad outline of studies on Japanese zaibatsu from the 1960s to the present day, viewed in the context of shifts in the post‐war Japanese economy. Research on zaibatsu constitutes one of the most substantial bodies of work in Japanese business history studies. In tracing its development the paper identifies three distinct peaks in research activity: in the second half of the 1960s, in the late 1970s to early 1980s, and in the first half of the 1990s. The first of these periods was marked by monopoly capital research that focused on the biggest zaibatsu, especially Mitsui; the second adopted the methods of business history and expanded the research focus to take in smaller zaibatsu and the so‐called ‘new‐wave zaibatsu’; the third sought to explicate connections between pre‐war zaibatsu and post‐war enterprise groups. From the mid‐1990s, however, Japan's prolonged recession and the accompanying pressures for economic structural reform brought a rapid cooling of interest in these representative institutions of the ‘old’ Japanese economy. The paper surveys these trends and introduces the latest research, with special reference to Mitsubishi, and suggests some possible paths along which zaibatsu research may develop in future."

"The objective of this article is to present a broad outline of studies on Japanese zaibatsu from the 1960s to the present day, viewed in the context of shifts in the post‐war Japanese economy. Research on zaibatsu constitutes one of the most substantial bodies of work in Japanese business history studies. In tracing its development the paper identifies three distinct peaks in research activity: in the second half of the 1960s, in the late 1970s to early 1980s, and in the first half of the 1990s. The first of these periods was marked by monopoly capital research that focused on the biggest zaibatsu, especially Mitsui; the second adopted the methods of business history and expanded the research focus to take in smaller zaibatsu and the so‐called ‘new‐wave zaibatsu’; the third sought to explicate connections between pre‐war zaibatsu and post‐war enterprise groups. From the mid‐1990s, however, Japan's prolonged recession and the accompanying pressures for economic structural reform brought a rapid cooling of interest in these representative institutions of the ‘old’ Japanese economy. The paper surveys these trends and introduces the latest research, with special reference to Mitsubishi, and suggests some possible paths along which zaibatsu research may develop in future."

"The concept of 'legalization' denotes heavy reliance on law as a means of settling social disputes and, in the United States, Germany and many other countries, it carries connotations of excessive reliance on law. In Japan, however, the rate of utilization of law (or litigation) as a means of settling social disputes remains low, despite the democratization process that unfolded after the war and despite profound changes in social structure, such as urbanization and growing individualism. Consequently, it is the lingering unwillingness to make use of the law that tends to be found problematic. Post-war Japanese scholarship of law and society has regarded litigation rates as an index of social modernization. Hence legalization must be analyzed in relation to the related discourse of 'modernization'. This paper examines some of the important approaches to this relationship that have been proposed, namely those emphasizing democratization; the relationship between imported and indigenous law; the company-centered nature of Japanese society; and the processes by which legal decisions are justified. The objective is to elucidate the peculiar locus that the discourse of 'legalization' occupies in Japanese society."

"Although leisure and tourism may seem at first blush to be anything but political, states generally create and maintain policies that deal with the recreation of citizens. The Japanese government's active post-war approach to leisure is unusual and distinctive, owing its shape to pre-war policy decisions privileging for strategic purposes American and European conceptions of proper recreation, leisure and travel. Tracing the evolution of Japan's pre-war tourism and leisure policies, this paper argues that Japanese efforts to use international tourism as an instrument for economic growth forced the government to confront the question of what constitutes proper recreation. These debates remained unsettled in the pre-war period, in part because of the turn toward militant nationalism in the 1930s, which mandated the valorization of an idealized Japanese culture. Yet the emphasis on Western styles of leisure and tourism found important policy homes in the pre-war era, laying the foundation for the post-war institutionalization of efforts to make Japanese leisure lives conform to those witnessed in North America and Western Europe."

"The purpose of this paper is to shed new light on the first enterprise boom of the 1880s, which marked the beginning of Japan's industrialization, with a special focus on developments in provincial areas. The paper seeks to identify important factors that triggered the boom and to examine its development in provincial areas by probing such aspects as the relationship between nationalism and the ideological thrust toward economic development, the process by which investment funds were procured, and the endowment and tapping of human resources. Major findings are as follows: (1) The ideology of national enrichment was influential not only in Japan's geopolitical center but also in the provinces, where it manifested itself as a combination of nationalist sentiment and aspirations for local development. (2) The most salient feature of provincial enterprise was the strong impetus of local initiative in the procurement of funding and human resources. Local bureaucrats and men of influence often took leading roles. (3) The successful launching of enterprises in provincial areas was facilitated by two factors: the provinces had already grown socially competent to pursue industrialization; and the development of rural industry since the Tokugawa period had made them fairly affluent."