ABSTRACT
Japan is a paradox. First, the state is weak. At least so it seems if one measures state power by the capacity of public authorities to coerce or compel. Appearances to the contrary notwithstanding-for, after all, Japan is a modern industrial state-the capacity for forceful governmental action has been so hedged in by various institutional and cultural constraints that the effective exercise of public power commonly requires consent by those most directly affected. State actors in Japan thus have generally not had the capacity to develop and direct policy or, more importantly, to compel compliance for its implementation typically enjoyed by either Japan’s East Asian neighbors or its American and European industrial peers. South Korea provides an instructive comparison. Successive governments, democratically elected, in Korea managed in the 1990s to respond quickly, forcefully, and quite dramatically both to political and corporate corruption and to a financial crisis similar to Japan’s.1
