The ideological conflicts of Japan’s subnational politics tend to be interpreted as either being largely muted or contained within the traditional national cleavage dimension of conservative vs progressive camps. Following two decades of substantial decentralization and growing local autonomy, however, a diversity of new ideological response to local issues have appeared. These include neo-liberal parties...
Japanese approaches to governance historically favored informal, bureaucratic, and legally non-binding “soft law” measures. Yet Japan has enacted more legalistic social policies in the past two decades, and the role of law and courts in policy processes has grown. What accounts for this shift in governance toward more formalized rules and enforcement mechanisms? Most explanations...