This is a truly fascinating book, adopting a multilayered and interdisciplinary approach to the comprehensive study of Japanese democracy. This book encompasses a lengthy time span, dating from the late 19th century to the present day, and readers will be able to understand and appreciate how Japanese democracy changed over this time. This book is a must read, not only for specialists of Japanese studies but also for graduate students and undergraduate students alike, who are interested in Japan, Japanese studies, or democracy in general.

Yoneyuki Sugita, Osaka University

Japan’s Multilayered Democracy offers a variety of innovative perspectives on Japan’s democracy. The book rejects parsimony but strives instead for a “holistic” approach, searching for and shedding a new light on issues, incidents, angles, and contexts which have not been given due attention in the prevailing mono-causal documentations of Japan. Readers will enjoy some chapters as presenting fresh details of forgotten but important cases and others as providing nuanced and highly original interpretations. Addressing to the wide range of academic disciplines, the book is sure to form a multilayered platform upon which many debates about modern Japan will take place in the near future.

Masaru Kohno, Waseda University

Japan can claim one of the oldest parliamentary systems in the non-Western world, yet democracy proved fragile in the prewar era and less than robust in the decades since 1945. Written from a variety of perspectives, these essays probe the measure, problems, and promise of democracy in modern Japan.

Sheldon Garon, Princeton University