Three New Books from Cornell University Press

1) Taming Japan's Deflation: The Debate over Unconventional Monetary Policy

By Gene Park, Saori N. Katada, Giacomo Chiozza, and Yoshiko Kojo

Publication Date: November 15, 2018 by Cornell University Press

See: https://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/taming-japans-deflation <https://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/taming-japans-deflation>


Description:

Bolder economic policy could have addressed the persistent bouts of deflation in post-bubble Japan, write Gene Park, Saori N. Katada, Giacomo Chiozza, and Yoshiko Kojo in Taming Japan's Deflation. Despite warnings from economists, intense political pressure, and well-articulated unconventional policy options to address this problem, Japan's central bank, the Bank of Japan (BOJ), resisted taking the bold actions that the authors believe would have significantly helped.


With Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's return to power, Japan finally shifted course at the start of 2013 with the launch of Abenomics--an economic agenda to reflate the economy--and Abe's appointment of new leadership at the BOJ. As Taming Japan's Deflation shows, the BOJ's resistance to experimenting with bolder policy stemmed from entrenched policy ideas that were hostile to activist monetary policy. The authors explain how these policy ideas evolved over the course of the BOJ's long history and gained dominance because of the closed nature of the broader policy network.


The explanatory power of policy ideas and networks suggests a basic inadequacy in the dominant framework for analysis of the politics of monetary policy derived from the literature on central bank independence. This approach privileges the interaction between political principals and their supposed agents, central bankers; but Taming Japan's Deflation shows clearly that central bankers' views, shaped by ideas and institutions, can be decisive in determining monetary policy. Through a combination of institutional analysis, quantitative empirical tests, in-depth case studies, and structured comparison of Japan with other countries, the authors show that, ultimately, the decision to adopt aggressive monetary policy depends largely on the bankers' established policy ideas and policy network.


Advance Praise:

"Taming Japan's Deflation provides the most detailed and up-to-date English-language examination of the Bank of Japan as an institution. One of the most puzzling macroeconomic stories of the last two decades has been the BOJ's failure to effectively address the challenge of deflation. The authors thoroughly and clearly address this puzzle, to which political scientists and economists have often pointed but never really explored comprehensively." - William Grimes, Professor of International Relations and Political Science, Boston University, and author of Currency and Contest in East Asia


"Taming Japan's Deflation provides interesting new insights on the making of monetary policy in Japan." - Ben S. Bernanke, Distinguished Fellow in Residence, The Brookings Institution



2) Empire of Hope: The Sentimental Politics of Japanese Decline

by David Leheny

Publication Date: November 15, 2018 by Cornell University Press

See: https://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/empire-of-hope <https://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/empire-of-hope>

Book Description:

Empire of Hope asks how emotions become meaningful in political life. In a diverse array of cases from recent Japanese history, David Leheny shows how sentimental portrayals of the nation and its global role reflect a durable story of hopefulness about the country's postwar path.

From the medical treatment of conjoined Vietnamese children, victims of

Agent Orange, the global promotion of Japanese popular culture, a tragic maritime accident involving a US Navy submarine, to the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster, this story has shaped the way in which political figures, writers, officials, and observers have depicted what the nation feels.


Expressions of national emotion do several things: they construct the boundaries of the national body, they inform and discipline appropriate expression, and they depoliticize messy problems that threaten to produce divisive questions about winners and losers. Most important, they work because they appear to be natural, simple and expected expressions of how the nation shares feeling, even when they paper over the extraordinary divergence in how the nation's citizens experience each incident. In making its arguments, Empire of Hope challenges how we read the relations between emotion and politics by arguing--unlike those who build from the neuroscientific turn in the social sciences or those developing affect theory in the humanities--that the focus should be on emotional representation rather than on emotion itself.


Critical Praise:

"David Leheny's inimitable prose is deployed at full throttle in Empire of Hope in a sweeping historical reading of the agency and symbolism of sentiment in depoliticized "long post war" Japanese society. His critical commentary is anchored and informed by a range of international and Japanese films, TV series, novels, theatre productions, literary critical theory, Hope-ology (kibōgaku), and political theory approaches. Juxtaposing individual and collective emotions, Leheny illustrates the affective conditions of and for the discourse of national 'is-ness.'"-- Jennifer Robertson, Professor of Anthropology & The History of Art, University of Michigan, author of Robo Sapiens Japanicus: Robots, Gender, Family, and the Japanese Nation


"Empire of Hope is a superb book. The subject--emotion and emotional representation in politics--is vitally important in light of the dawning realization that political and economic 'rationality' does not always do well in helping us understand political outcomes. Vividly illustrated, well-articulated and persuasive, this book is a joy to read." -- Henry C. W. Laurence, Associate Professor of Government and Asian Studies, Bowdoin College, and author of Money Rules: The New Politics of Finance in Britain and Japan


"I wish I could write like Leheny. He possesses the gift of being able to marry complex ideas with rich empirical detail in a style that is accessible, edifying, and entertaining. This is evident in this book, which explores the points at which politics and emotions intersect in Japan." - Hugo Dobson, Professor of Japan's International Relations, University of Sheffield, and author of a number of monographs and articles on Japan's politics and international relations


"David Leheny, one of the most creative scholars of international relations today, explores how national narratives arise, change, and constrain views of ourselves and others. Drawing from cinema, narrative and emotion, Leheny challenges conventional views of Japan and its place in the world. This provocative book is necessary for understanding Japan and international relations in general." - David Kang, Professor of International Relations and Business, University of Southern California



3) Dark Pasts: Changing the State's Story in Turkey and Japan

By Jennifer M. Dixon

Publication Date: November 15, 2018 by Cornell University Press

See: https://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/dark-pasts <https://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/dark-pasts>

Book Description:

Over the past two decades, many states have heard demands that they recognize and apologize for historic wrongs. Such calls have not elicited uniform or predictable responses. While some states have apologized for past crimes, others continue to silence, deny, and relativize dark pasts. What explains the tremendous variation in how states deal with past crimes? When and why do states change the stories they tell about their dark pasts.

Dark Pasts argues that international pressures increase the likelihood of change in official narratives about dark pasts, but domestic considerations determine the content of such change. Rather than simply changing with the passage of time, persistence, or rightness, official narratives of dark pasts are shaped by interactions between political factors at the domestic and international levels. Unpacking the complex processes through which international pressures and domestic dynamics shape states' narratives, Jennifer M. Dixon analyzes the trajectories over the past sixty years of Turkey's narrative of the 1915-17 Armenian Genocide and Japan's narrative of the 1937-38 Nanjing Massacre. While both states' narratives started from similar positions of silencing, relativizing, and denial, Japan has come to express regret and apologize for the Nanjing Massacre, while Turkey has continued to reject official wrongdoing and deny the genocidal nature of the violence.

Combining historical richness and analytical rigor, Dark Pasts unravels the complex processes through which such narratives are constructed and contested, and offers an innovative way to analyze narrative change. Her book sheds light on the persistent presence of the past and reveals how domestic politics functions as a filter that shapes the ways in which states' narratives change--or do not--over time.


Critical Praise:

"The quality of Dark Pasts is excellent. Dixon's work is unique in its comparison of the denial of violence in both Turkey and Japan, and in its analytical rigor. Well-conceived, based on a wealth of resources, this book is a significant contribution." - Fatma Müge Göçek, Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies, University of Michigan, and author of Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence against Armenians


"In this fascinating study, Jennifer Dixon investigates when and how official narratives about political violence actually change. Her findings are eye-opening and reveal how the dynamic interplay between international pressure and domestic contestation influences the politics of memory. This book should be read by scholars of human rights, transitional justice, and comparative politics." - Bronwyn Leebaw, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of California, Riverside, and author of prize-winning Judging State Sponsored Violence, Imagining Political Change


"Dark Pasts is required reading for those interested in how and why governments engage in historical mythmaking about their own past human rights atrocities, and how they suppress others' efforts to reveal these atrocities." - Stephen Van Evera, Ford International Professor of Political Science, MIT


"Jennifer Dixon draws on extensive evidence from Turkey and Japan to develop a careful conceptual framework and advance a persuasive argument. Her fascinating book has implications for scholars of memory, justice, and human rights, and for those seeking to understand state narratives, how they matter, and why they shift. " - Scott Straus, University of Wisconsin-Madison

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