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Both academics and journalists have given increasing attention to the rising importance of prime ministers – a phenomenon often referred to 'presidentialization'. Although many commentators use the term differently, and the term blurs the line between the very different institutional contexts of a parliamentary and presidential system, one careful definition of the term is 'the movement over time away from collective to personalized government, movement away from a pattern of governmental and electoral politics dominated by the political party towards one where the party leader becomes a more autonomous political force.'This phenomenon has been observed primarily in Britain and in West European parliamentary democracies – no one has ever described the Japanese parliamentary system as even remotely 'presidentialized'. In fact, the Japanese prime minister has not been the subject of much academic research, and even the Japanese press often used to ignore the prime minister. Despite being the leader of a majority party in a centralized political system, the Japanese prime minister was almost universally described as weak and uninteresting, with both academic and popular discourse focusing on the powerful bureaucracy and factional politics within the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). However, recent political changes, most prominently the selection and popularity of Junichirō Koizumi as Japan's prime minister in the spring of 2001, have led to a surge of interest in the prime minister.

Japanese complaint activities at the World Trade Organization, US-Japan trade liberalization, the Asian financial crisis and aftermath, and regional security; 4 articles. Contents: International law, industry, and the state: explaining Japan's complaint activities at the WTO, by Saadia M. Pekkanen; The US, Japan, and trade liberalization: from bilateralism to regional multilateralism to regionalism+, by Ellis S. Krauss; Embedded policy preferences and the formation of international arrangements after the Asian financial crisis, by Nobuhiro Hiwatari; Japan's approach toward Asian regional security: from "hub-and-spoke" bilateralism to "multi-tiered", by Kuniko Ashizawa.

What political role does the Japanese press play? How does it cover important political issues & events? The common answers in the literature offer two very different views: the press as a "watchdog" for the public & a force of opposition to the dominant ruling party or the Japanese press as a "lapdog," subserviently reporting whatever officials dictate. We examine the Asahi newspaper's coverage of two critical issues in a decade of enormous political upheaval: political reform from 1992 to 1994 & administrative reform from 1995 to 1997. An analysis of the patterns of coverage for all the articles during these periods & an examination of agenda setting, bias, & objectivity in a random sample of articles reveals that neither of the extreme characterizations of the press fits. Rather, the press plays a combination of roles: It is frequently the passive transmitter of information for agenda-setting officials, but it occasionally exhibits a pro-reform bias & tries to set the agenda in specific & limited ways. The authors conclude with a discussion of why these patterns of coverage emerge & why these overdrawn & distorted images of the Japanese press still exist. 4 Tables, 4 Charts, 33 References. [Copyright 2002 Sage Publications, Inc.]

Argues that US intervention in the manufacturing sector relies more on trade incentives than on industrial promotion.