Read this book to gain a deeper understanding of the Asian crisis. Much has been written on the economic side, but "The Politics of the Asian Economic Crisis" assembles the experts to explain political differentiation among the countries affected.

Although experts on Japan may have some specific academic criticisms, these should not detract from the overall quality of Pempel's book. The book synthesises an extremely wide body of literature (both English and Japanese language) on Japan's modern political economy, especially less well-known or unorthodox ideas overlooked by many Western texts. As such, it deserves to become a standard in bringing students (in the widest sense of the term) up to a graduate, if not higher, level understanding. It would definitely also make enlightening reading to those Western policy makers and commentators on Japan who have yet to grasp the subtleties of Japan's rise and the even more complicated factors behind its current decline.

since the 1982, the developmental state, articulated by Chalmers Johson in his infulential book 'MITI', has been the standard approach in the field of North East Asian studies at least in the circle of political economy. but the model of developmental state does not fit into the phenomenon since the 1980s, in SOuth Korea, and the 1973, in Japan. the bureacrats is not that autonoumous like the past, i.e. the rapid growth period, the ruling party proned to be the masters of fork barrel politics, and constituents were not that concensual like the past. there must be some 'shift'. Pempel's work is the attempt to provide a comprehensive framework to explain the shift in systematic and succinct way. his framework is based on the concept of 'regime' which is common in the field of comparative politics. I think he succeeded in that point.
but the concept of regime has some limitation: for example, it can't expalin why keiretsu or main bank system developed and why it has been disolved since 1980s. sure I know it was not Pempel's intention to include them. but to understand Japan or Korea, we should include big businesses. without them, explanation can't be comprehensive. it's the point of political economy, I think.

Pempel convincingly argues in REGIME SHIFT that the major domestic and international changes taking place in Japan during the last decade or more have cumulatively resulted in a fundamental transformation in Japan's political economy. He then traces the consequences for Japan's present and future of this alteration. A major attempt to synthesize what others have seen as disparate, unconnected events and trends at both domestic and international levels into a coherent view of where Japan is and is going. Must reading for anyone interested in Japanese politics and economics, and its place in the world.

You might click away to other link when you check the year of publication, 1981 (actually 1982). Yep. This book couldn¡¯t include later developments in Japanese researches and real life events. But I don¡¯t think this limitation shatters down the whole value of the book. I thought in that way when I should read this book for a graduate class. But when I opened then book, my presumption proved wrong.
This book overviews in skillful manner the issues raised on the public sphere of postwar Japan upto ¡®70s, ranging from economic policy, labor-management relations, social welfare, higher education, environmental protection, to administrative reform. I think the accounts of Pempel in this book still are valid. There is not much titles which effectively overview postwar Japan as a whole. Each chapter is structured into 4 sections:
Context: this section offers the reader a historical standpoint from prewar period to understand the overall trend of each issue.
Agenda: this section deals with real issues raised in the public sphere.
Process: this section sketches out what was the political process to tackle the issues.
Consequences:
These 4 sections provide the clear picture of each area of agenda in the cumulative spiral way. But the real beauty is the part of ¡®Readings¡¯ in each chapter. This part contains the document from real actors from LDP, JSP, labor unions, government agencies, and economic federations like Keidanren. Readings part occupies almost half of each chapter. I haven¡¯t seen any books on Japan structured in this way.

Cases of perpetual one-party dominance among democracies in the industrialized societies are few and exceptional. So we could identify such polities as ¡®uncommon democracies¡¯. The aim of this volume is to probe the condition of such long-term dominances in the cases of Japan, Sweden, Italy, and Israel in the manner of comparative politics. Authors dissect the socioeconomic coalition, the electoral strategy, polity package, and organizational features of each dominant party, in other words, explanations are centered around the dominant party. Those variables and methodology are common to political scientists. But, personally, I spotted the prototype of Pempel¡¯s conception of ¡®regime¡¯ in this volume, which was fully developed in his recent title on Japan, ¡®Regime Shift¡¯. In that title, Pempel, the editor of this book, reorganizes oft-adopted, but vague, word, ¡®regime¡¯ in systematic way. The regime is, he suggests, the three-dimensional concept: the socioeconomic coalition, policy profile, and political economic institutions. A successful regime is formed on the rock of socioeconomic coalition. This coalition set the policy profile of the regime which political economic institutions carry on. The overall points of this book become much more clear with Pempel¡¯s conception. But Pempel¡¯s ¡®Regime Shift¡¯ can¡¯t replace this book. The former is exclusively devoted to the postwar Japan. So this book could provide the good comparative standpoint to readers.