Isamu Okada's Page

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.