Japanese Democracy

[michael]

Brad's connection between Italy and Japan is apt.  In both cases, the US worked
hard to create such a hegemony in order to protect the country from a communist
won election.  I don't remember the details about Japan clearly.  My source was
from a New York Review of Books article from 20-30 years ago about a book that
discussed the rise of the first post war prime minister in Japan.

Brad De Long wrote:


> But don't you feel that there was something... very wrong in the way the
> post-WWII Japanese political system worked out? Two generations of LDP
> hegemony (perhaps in a manner similar to CD hegemony in Italy) do not seem
> to me to have done much to advance those habits of heart and mind necessary
> if political democracy is to be much more than a hollow shell...

--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu