This paper locates Japan's financial policies in the context of electoral incentives. The collapse of Japan's economic bubble in 1990 exposed the rot in the banking system, hidden for decades by a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government intent on maintaining favor with local support groups,...

It is a well-established tenet of historical political economy that modern territorial states emerged as protection rackets that extracted taxes from vulnerable communities. This paper explores a variety of bargains between communities and their “protectors” based on factors that account for...

Employing a survey method to explore attitudes towards foreign workers in Japan, we uncover evidence that upends the conventional wisdom that “socio-tropic values” are anchored in perceptions of threat. Building a new typology that differentiates among native-born citizens who value or fear...

According to popular wisdom, judicial independence and the rule of law are essential features of modern democracy. Drawing on the growing comparative literature on courts, we unpack this claim by focusing on two broad questions: How does the type of political regime affect judicial independence?...