Monthly Archives: December 2014

シンガポール研究を専門とされる著者が、長年の経験とアジア政治研究者との議論を通じて紡ぎあげた好著。複数の国の具体的な事例を適切にとりいれて自説を展開している点は、比較政治学の真骨頂といえるもので、大変勉強になります。比較分析というのは、自説に照らして事例を切り盛りするわけなので、各国ファンから「偏った理解だ」とか「知識が足りない」などの批判が集まることがよくあります。しかしながら、そういった各国ファンからの批判を恐れるならば全く歯切れはよくならないわけです。そういった高いハードルがあるだけに、この本は秀逸であろうと思います。私自身はアジア政治研究は全くの門外漢ではあるのですが。来年度の全学教育科目「国際開発学」のテキストの１つになる予定です。

Today we had the 47th elections of the members of the House of Representatives. It was snowing in the northern region, which contributed to a low percentage of voter turnout. As the governing party is said to have more core voters, the lower voter turnout is likely to result in a lower participation of swing voters, majority and latent critical to the governing party. The bad weather condition is not the only factor for the lower turnout.  While the last election in 2012 meant the change in the governing parties, this time the alternative to the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was not apparent. A part of the result may … Continue reading →

Carew Boulding. 2014. NGOs, Political Protest, and Civil Society. New York: Cambridge UP As it has been reported in several Latin American countries, political protests mobilized by civil society organizations have caused breakdown of some presidents but not of democratic regime as a whole (of course, not all). This book provides a tale complementary to this phenomenon by taking a glance at NGOs and associations. The author tests her hypothesis by econometric regression models on the broad and different datasets from Bolivia, the Latin American region, and further to  other developing democracies in other regions.

Rosenbluth, Frances M., and Michael F. Thies. 2010. Japan Transformed: Political Change and Economic Restructuring. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 邦訳：フランシス・ローゼンブルース＆マイケル・ティース（2012）『日本政治の大転換―「鉄とコメの同盟」から日本型自由主義へ』（徳川家広訳、勁草書房） This book may be a good summary of Japanese politics for the juniors in graduate school, for those interested in both historical background to recent changes. The authors not only introduce the principal topics of Japanese politics but also treat them in a well-considered theoretical argument, with particular emphasis on electoral system change in 1994.