In the early 1990s, Japanese reformers promised a political transformation: fewer pork-barrel projects, more accountability, and greater transparency. Have these promises been realized?

In the past twenty years, Japanese politics has undergone many dramatic changes. Electoral reform altered the relationship between politicians and voters, and Japan has steadily moved toward a two-party system.

Amid these shifts, it remains unclear where Japanese politics is heading, and whether the changes we observe now will stand the test of time. Each chapter in this wide-ranging volume addresses a key political development in Japan, notably voting behavior, the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats, gender gaps in political candidacies, and clientelistic versus ideological politics. Political Change in Japan likewise includes extensive discussion of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's dramatic career. In sum, the book's contributors assess not only the direction but also the probable permanence of political change in Japan.

Intended for scholars and students who study Japan, this timely volume provides valuable reading for comparative political scientists as well. With contributions from some of the most eminent scholars working on Japan today, Political Change in Japan seeks to answer the question: Was political reform in Japan a revolution or a flash in the pan?

Few regions rival the Korean Peninsula in strategic importance to U.S. foreign policy. For half a century, America has stationed tens of thousands of troops in South Korea to defend its ally from the threat of North Korean aggression. South Korea, in turn, is critical to the defense of Japan, another ally and the linchpin of American interests in East Asia. The rise of a nuclear-armed North has upped the ante.

Yet despite the stakes, the two Koreas have registered only episodically on the radar of the United States. The troubling gap between American perceptions of the peninsula and its strategic importance remained an unexplored phenomenon until now. First Drafts of Korea breaks new ground in examining how the American mass media shape U.S. perceptions of both Koreas and, as a result, influence U.S. foreign policy.

Beginning with a detailed analysis of American newspaper coverage of Korea between 1992 and 2003, the book features essays by Western journalists and senior U.S. officials with firsthand experience on the peninsula over the past two decades. These include frank accounts of the unique frustrations of covering Kim Jong-il's North Korea, undoubtedly the most closed and media-unfriendly nation on earth.

Addressing topics ranging from the democratization of South Korea in the 1980s to today's deteriorating nuclear crisis, the book's distinguished contributors offer unique insights into American media coverage of the peninsula and its impact on policymaking in Washington. What emerges is a complex, shifting portrait of two rival nations sharing one peninsula whose future remains inextricably linked to the global security interests of the United States.

Desk, examination, or review copies can be requested through Stanford University Press.

India has been famous for arguing that it (and the rest of the developing world) should incur no expense in controlling emissions that cause climate change. The west caused the problem and it should clean it up. That argument is increasingly untenable — both in the fundamental arithmetic of climate change, which is a problem that is impossible to solve without developing country participation, and in the political reality that important western partners will increasingly demand more of India and other developing countries. India’s own public is also demanding more.

The Indian government has outlined a broad plan for what could be done, but the plan still lacks a strategy to inform which efforts offer the most leverage on warming emissions and which are most credible because they align with India’s own interests.

This paper offers a framework for that strategy. It suggests that a large number of options to control warming gases are in India’s own self-interest, and with three case studies it suggests that leverage on emissions could amount to several hundred million tonnes of CO2 annually over the next decade and an even larger quantity by 2030. (For comparison, the Kyoto Protocol has caused worldwide emission reductions of, at most, a couple hundred million tonnes of CO2 per year.) We suggest in addition to identifying self-interest — which is the key concept in the burgeoning literature on “co-benefits” of climate change policy — that it is also important to examine where India and outsiders (e.g., technology providers and donors) have leverage.

One reason that strategies offered to date have remained abstract and difficult to implement is that they are not rooted in a clear understanding of where the Government of India is able to deliver on its promises (and where Indian firms have access to the needed technology and practices). Many ideas are interesting in theory but do not align with the administrative and technological capabilities of the Indian context. As the rest of the world contemplates how to engage with India on the task of controlling emissions it must craft deals that reflect India’s interests, capabilities and leverage on emissions. These deals will not be simple to craft, but there are many precedents for such arrangements in other areas of international cooperation, such as in accession agreements to the WTO.

Encina Columns is the biannual newsletter of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. The newsletter, published in the winter and summer, highlights recent news, events, policy analysis, and accomplishments of the institute and its research centers and programs.

European and American experts systematically compare U.S. and EU strategies to promote democracy around the world -- from the Middle East and the Mediterranean, to Latin America, the former Soviet bloc, and Southeast Asia. In doing so, the authors debunk the pernicious myth that there exists a transatlantic divide over democracy promotion.

South Asia scholar Anja Manuel discusses how the United States can improve its image with Muslim communities worldwide, going beyond just "winning hearts and minds." Farah Pandith, the State Department's new Special Representative to Muslim Communities, must navigate difficult policy paths to create a message of peace, stability, and economic opportunity.