Japanese Politics: Good or Bad?

Abstract

The question posed in the title of this chapter may seem to many readers extraordinary. How can one apply value words such as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ to something so complex as a nation’s politics? What standards of judgement could possibly be applied to the politics of Japan, when no clear and absolute standards exist for judging the quality of the politics of Western countries? Surely political scientists have no business making normative judgements since they ought to be engaged in empirical, ‘value-free’ research. In any case is not Japanese politics something that may only reasonably be considered in its own terms, as sui generis and rooted in the special cultural soil of Japan?