ABSTRACT

The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Japan presents a synthesized, interdisciplinary study of contemporary Japan based on up-to-date theoretical models designed to provide readers with a comprehensive and full understanding of the dynamics of contemporary Japan. In order to achieve this, the Handbook is organized into two parts. Part I, ‘Foundations’, clarifies the state of contemporary Japan topic by topic by referring to the latest theoretical developments in the relevant disciplinary fields of politics, international relations, economy, society, culture and the personal. Part II, ‘Issues’, then offers a series of concrete analyses building upon the theoretical discussions introduced in Part I to help undergraduate and postgraduate students learn how to conduct independent analysis.

Locating Japan in a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, this Handbook is an essential resource for students and scholars interested in Japanese studies, Asian studies and global studies.

chapter |8 pages

Introduction

The contemporariness of contemporary Japan

part I|212 pages

Foundations

chapter 1|14 pages

History

War memory and Japan’s ‘postwar’

chapter 2|17 pages

Politics

After the demise of ‘the 1955 system’

chapter 3|16 pages

The Law in Japan

chapter 4|22 pages

The Japanese Economy

chapter 5|22 pages

Work and Employment

Inside, outside and beyond the lifetime employment model

chapter 6|16 pages

Civil Society in Japan

chapter 8|20 pages

Japan’s New Immigration

Gap in admission policy and diversity in socio-economic integration

chapter 11|15 pages

Popular Imagination in Japan

part II|286 pages

Issues

chapter 13|9 pages

Democracy in Japan

chapter 14|15 pages

Japan’s Territorial Problems

Continuing legacies of the San Francisco System

chapter 16|12 pages

Employment Regulation and Practices

The production and consumption of non-regular work

chapter 17|13 pages

Energy Issues in Japan

chapter 18|13 pages

Japan and the Environment

Industrial pollution, biodiversity loss and climate change

chapter 19|14 pages

Japan’s Post-Catch-up Modernity

Educational transformation and its unintended consequences

chapter 20|15 pages

University Reform in Japan

chapter 22|13 pages

Gender Equality in Japan

chapter 23|8 pages

Femininity and Masculinity

chapter 24|11 pages

LGBT

chapter 25|9 pages

Consumerism

chapter 26|12 pages

Food

chapter 27|12 pages

Tourism

chapter 28|14 pages

Young Urban Migrants in the Japanese Countryside Between Self-Realization and Slow Life?

The quest for ‘small-scale happiness’ and alternative lifestyles in post-growth Japan

chapter 29|14 pages

The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games

The political economy of Tokyo hosting the world

chapter 30|17 pages

Social Malaise in Japan

chapter 31|13 pages

Media in Japan

chapter 32|10 pages

Mobile Reflections

Rethinking digitality in a post-3/11 Japan

chapter 33|13 pages

Okinawa

Rooting and routing of Uchinānchu and Shimā