Dear John,

I apologize for the blatant self-promotion, but my recent book Building Democracy in Japan (Cambridge
2012) isn't exactly a text, but it does cover political history, the main parts of government, inter-governmental relations, as well as civil society organizations, generational change, and gender relations. It does not spend too much space on party politics or the electoral system, so it is useful to pair it with Krauss and Pekkanen's work or Sherry Martin and Gill Steel's book.

I use it in my own Japanese politics course to good effect, and I've given a couple of guest lectures for colleagues who are using it in their courses as well.

Cheers,
Mary-Alice

Mary Alice Haddad
Government Department
Wesleyan University