The new edition of Critical Issues in Contemporary Japan provides students with an interdisciplinary textbook written by leading specialists on contemporary Japan. Students will gain the analytical insights necessary to assess the challenges that confront the Japanese people, policymakers and private and public sector institutions today.

Introduction, Jeff Kingston PART I: Political environment 1. Japanese politics: mainstream or exotic?, Arthur Stockwin 2. The politics of trade policy, Aurelia George Mulgan 3. Limiting fundamental rights protection in Japan: the role of the Supreme Court, Lawrence Repeta 4. Civil society: past, present, and future, Akihiro Ogawa 5. Japan’s contemporary media, David McNeill PART II: Nuclear and renewable Energy 6. Revisiting the limits of flexible and adaptive institutions: the Japanese government’s role in nuclear power plant siting over the post-war period, Daniel P. Aldrich 7. Who controls whom? Constraints, challenges and rival policy images in Japan’s post-war energy restructuring, Paul Scalise 8. Japan’s nuclear village: Power and resilience, Jeff Kingston 9. Japan’s renewable energy prospects, Andrew DeWit PART III: International dynamics 10. Bad war or good war? History and politics in post-war Japan, Sven Saaler 11. Territorial disputes with Korea and China: Small islets, enduring Conflicts, Mark Selden 12. An inconvenient truce: domestic politics and the Russo-Japanese Northern Territories dispute, Tina Burrett 13. Okinawa today: spotlight on Henoko, Alexis Dudden PART IV: Social dilemmas 14. Demographic dilemmas, women and immigration, Jeff Kingston 15. Reproductive rights in Japan: where do women stand? Tin Tin Htun 16. Hiding in plain sight: minority issues in Japan, Kyle Cleveland 17. Mental health and therapy in Japan: conceptions, practices, and challenges, Sachiko Horiguchi 18. Violence in schools: tensions between ‘the individual’ and ‘the group’ in the Japanese education system, Robert Aspinall 19. Hidden behind Tokyo: observations on the rest of Japan, John Mock PART V: Reforming Japan? 20. Seeking to change Japanese society through legal reform, Matthew J. Wilson 21. Parochialism: Japan's failure to internationalize, Robert Dujarric and Ayumi Takenaka 22. What’s behind what ails Japan, David Leheny 23. Whither Abe's Japan, Jeff Kingston