Japanese Politics and Foreign Policy

Catalog description

This course surveys key features of contemporary Japanese politics and foreign policy, using a comparative lens to explain development and change over time. In the process of evaluating these changes, the course examines (1) important actors in domestic politics (e.g., voters, politicians, political parties, and bureaucrats); (2) the positions that different actors take with respect to various domestic and foreign policies, as well as the sources of these policy preferences and changes over time; and (3) the roles played by political institutions and history in structuring contemporary political behavior and policy outcomes.