Suchergebnisse

1: Osborne, Stephen P.: The voluntary and non-profit sector in contemporary Japan. Emerging roles and organizational challenges in a changing society. 2: Bestor, Victoria Lyon ; Maekawa, Reiko: The philanthropic roots of the voluntary and non-profit sector in Japan. The Rockefeller legacy. 3: Imada, Makoto: The voluntary response to the Hanshin Awaji earthquake. A trigger for the development of the voluntary and non-profit sector in Japan. 4: Pekkanen, Robert: The politics of regulating the non-profit sector. 5: Pekkanen, Robert ; Simon, Karla: The legal framework for voluntary and non-profit activity. 6: Kawashima, Nobuko: Business and the NPO sector in Japan. Development and prospects. 7: Bothwell, Robert O.: The challenges of growing the NPO and voluntary sector in Japan. 8: Nishizutsumi, Yoji ; Rillington, Kira ; Handy, Femida: Strategic management and Japanese non-profits. Can it work? 9: Auger, Deborah A.: The government - non-profit relationship in contemporary Japan. An emerging local government-non-profit partnership in Miyagi. 10: Imada, Makoto:The philanthropic tradition and fund raising for the voluntary and non-profit sector in Japan. 11: Ohwa, Mie: The voluntary and non-profit-sector and the community in Japan. Making links and responding to needs. 12: Ueto, Takato: Supporting local groups in responding to social needs. A case study of the Kobe Community Support Project. 13: Osborne, Stephen P. ; McLaughlin, Kate ; Miyamoto, Taro: Managing the Japanese voluntary and non-profit sector. An agenda for the future

AbstractWhat determines whether interest groups choose to contact politicians or bureaucrats? Despite the importance of this question for policymaking, democracy, and some prominent principal-agent understandings of politics, it is relatively unexplored in the literature. We argue that government stability plays a major part in interest groups' decisions. That is, central to interest groups' decisions is their assessment of the likelihood that politicians currently in power will continue to be in the future. We deduce logical, but totally contrasting hypotheses, about how interest groups lobby under such conditions of uncertainty and then test these using a heteroskedastic probit model that we apply to a unique longitudinal survey of interest groups in Japan. We find that when it is unclear if the party controlling the government will maintain power in the future, interest groups are more likely to contact the bureaucracy. When it is believed that the party in power will retain control for a considerable period, interest groups are more inclined to contact politicians. In addition, during times of government uncertainty, interest groups that are supportive of the governing party (or parties) are more likely to contact politicians and those that are less supportive will be more likely to contact bureaucrats.

1. Neighborhood associations in Japan's civil society -- 2. Profiles of neighborhood association organizations -- 3. Internal governance and leadership -- 4. Social capital and participation -- 5. Working with other organizations -- 6. Neighborhood associations and social services -- 7. Cooperation and collaboration with local government -- 8. Neighborhood associations and political participation -- 9. Conclusion.

Studies of venue shopping have typically analyzed the case of an individual advocacy group or issue campaign rather than comparing venue strategies across multiple groups. Moreover, this literature focuses on interest groups and advocacy coalitions whose principal mandate is to influence public policy. Using original data, we test theories of venue selection among nonprofit organizations that report engaging in policy processes but the majority of which do not self‐identify as an advocacy group. Our analyses explore the "where" of nonprofit advocacy across three different venue types: branch (executive, legislative), domain (bureaucracy, elected officials), and level of government (local, state, federal). Like interest groups, we find that nonprofits shop among both executive and legislative branches and among elected and bureaucratic domains; however, they tend to specialize in one level of government. Geographic scope and revenue source predicted venue targeting, but most other organizational characteristics including age, capacity, and structure did not.

This third volume in the Japan Decides series remains the premier venue for scholarly research on Japanese elections. Putting a spotlight on the 2017 general election, the contributors discuss the election results, party politics, coalition politics with Komeito, the cabinet, constitutional revision, new opposition parties, and Abenomics. Additionally, the volume looks at campaigning, public opinion, media, gender issues and representation, North Korea and security issues, inequality, immigration and cabinet scandals. With a topical focus and timely coverage of the latest dramatic changes in Japanese politics, the volume will appeal to researchers and policy experts alike, and will also make a welcome addition to courses on Japanese politics, comparative politics and electoral politics.

How do electoral systems affect legislative organization? The change in electoral systems from Single Member District plurality (SMD) to Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) in New Zealand can illuminate how electoral incentives affect the distribution of cabinet positions. Because in SMD the outcome of individual local districts determines the number of seats a party wins collectively, New Zealand parties deploy cabinet posts in order to shore up the electoral fortunes of individual members. In MMP, the total number of seats a party receives is determined by the votes in the proportional representation (PR) portion for the party, which eliminates the incentives to reward electorally unsafe members with cabinet positions. We show that strong cabinet members, measured through experience as prior terms in the cabinet position, are still likely to be retained. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

How do electoral systems affect legislative organization? The change in electoral systems from Single Member District plurality (SMD) to Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) in New Zealand can illuminate how electoral incentives affect the distribution of cabinet positions. Because in SMD the outcome of individual local districts determines the number of seats a party wins collectively, New Zealand parties deploy cabinet posts in order to shore up the electoral fortunes of individual members. In MMP, the total number of seats a party receives is determined by the votes in the proportional representation (PR) portion for the party, which eliminates the incentives to reward electorally unsafe members with cabinet positions. We show that strong cabinet members, measured through experience as prior terms in the cabinet position, are still likely to be retained.

Key party goals serve to advance a policy brand and maximize seats in the legislature. This book offers a theory of how political parties assign their elected members - their 'personnel' - to specialized legislative committees to serve collective organizational goals, here known as 'party personnel strategies'.

This paper introduces eight country‐level datasets with >50,000 observations that can be used to analyze novel comparative questions concerning party personnel strategies—how parties recruit candidates and allocate members across party, legislative, and cabinet positions. We make these datasets public to inspire comparative research, especially from an electoral systems perspective; electoral systems shape constituency representation and influence how parties recruit candidates and organize members in legislative and government bodies. In this paper, we first briefly review the relevant literature on electoral nomination and post‐election appointment and then describe our motivations for constructing multi‐country datasets that can be used to further comparative research. To illustrate the possibilities in these new datasets, we show how recruitment and placement of parliamentarians with particular personal characteristics correlates with their placement onto specific committees and cabinet posts. A conclusion identifies other areas of research that might benefit from using the party personnel datasets.

Enthält Rezensionen u.a. von: Dower, John W.: Ways of forgetting, ways of remembering : Japan in the modern world. - New York/N.Y. : The New Press, 2012

Widespread dissatisfaction in Japan in the 1990s set the stage for numerous political reforms aimed at enhancing representation and accountability. But have these reforms in fact improved the quality of Japanese democracy? Through the lens of this question, the authors explore contemporary Japanese politics at the national, local, and grassroots levels. Their systematic analysis of when and how citizens attempt to create and use new opportunities to articulate political interests offers insights not only on the current state of Japanese democracy, but also on the dynamics of political behavior over all

This book is the first comprehensive, systematic investigation of the connection between civil society and political change in Asia—change toward open, participatory, and accountable politics. Its findings suggest that the link between a vibrant civil society and democracy is indeterminate: certain types of civil society organizations support democracy, but others have the potential to undermine it. Further, the study argues that while civil society is a key factor in political change, democratic transition and consolidation hinge on the development of effective political parties, legislatures, and state institutions. Rooted in a common definition of civil society, a strong analytical framework, and rich empirical material, the analyses and conclusions of the book will have a lasting impact on the understanding of civil society and its relation to democracy in Asia and around the world