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Flawed Political Economy of Decentralization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Andrew DeWit  and
Yukiko YAMAZAKI
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Over the past three years, much of the Japanese public and many students of its political economy have grown used to being disappointed by the Koizumi style of reform. Koizumi came to office through internal party selection on April 26, 2001, his candidacy largely driven by the desperation of local Liberal Democratic Party chapters facing defeat in Upper House elections. Koizumi was supposed to be the Japanese equivalent of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” and in his first year became akin to a rock star for his willingness to talk about as well as take on taboos and sacred cows. His talk of painful fiscal and economic reform would have scared off electors in any other society not gripped by a sense of foreboding and the need for drastic change.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 3 , Issue 6 , June 2005 , e9
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2005

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