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Japan's Financial Crisis: Institutional Rigidity and Reluctant Change

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Amyx is one of very few scholars doing the kind of yeoman's work in political science today that is necessary for successfully integrating original source field research with rigorous theoretical analysis. The payoff is the kind of detailed and informed study that made Johnson's MITI and the Japanese Miracle a classic. Amyx's analysis of networks inclusive of the Ministry of Finance provides a rich explanatory framework for policy paralysis over the course of a dozen + years. A particularly interesting insight is that networks (i.e., people) make institutions durable even as institutions structure incentives for individuals. This reinforcing relationship, in Japan's case, led to intransigence and suboptimal outcomes for nearly all parties. I highly recommend this to readers interested in an update on bureaucratic politics in Japan, and those interested in the backstory to the grim headlines on Japan in the financial papers over the last decade. Even as Japan starts its long-delayed turnaround, this book will help readers understand where change is most likely to occur, and where the bottlenecks still exist.