Who Rules Japan?

The dramatic growth of the Japanese economy in the post-war period, and its meltdown in the 1990s, generated major reform recommendations in 2001 from the Justice System Reform Council aimed at greater civic engagement with law. This timely book examines the regulation and design of the Japanese legal system and contributes a legal perspective to the long-standing debate in Japanese Studies: who governs Japan? Who Rules Japan? explores the extent to which a new Japanese state has emerged from th