ABSTRACT
Crisis and turmoil have a way of defining a people and their society.Japan has experienced prolonged and pervasive adversity in therecession-plagued 1990s, shaking beliefs, inclinations, relationships and patterns of behaviour. The ongoing transformation of Japan in the twenty-first century is driven in no small part by the wave of developments in the tumultuous 1990s that have acted as a curtain call for the postwar era. The verities of postwar Japan are fading rapidly or have disappeared altogether, signalling what some commentators refer to as the third great transformation in modern Japan. Perhaps one of the most profound changes has occurred in the way that citizens view their government as a series of scandals and exposés of negligence, incompetence and mismanagement have undermined the edifice of power and status of those who rule.
