View All Book Series

Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Studies

About the Book Series

Despite Japan's importance in the modern world, much about Japan remains unknown outside the country. This series provides informative, original, detailed studies on a variety of aspects of modern Japan.
It has established itself as an authoritative available source of scholarship on all aspects of Japan. Publishing policy is directed by some of the most respected names in Japanese studies.

96 Series Titles


Japan’s New Ruralities Coping with Decline in the Periphery

Japan’s New Ruralities: Coping with Decline in the Periphery

1st Edition

Edited By Wolfram Manzenreiter, Ralph Lützeler, Sebastian Polak-Rottmann
February 21, 2020

Seeking to challenge negative perceptions within Japanese media and politics on the future of the countryside, the contributors to this book present a counterargument to the inevitable demise of rural society. Contrary to the dominant argument, which holds outmigration and demographic hyper-aging ...

Understanding Japanese Society

Understanding Japanese Society

5th Edition

By Joy Hendry
July 29, 2019

In this welcome brand new fifth edition of the bestselling textbook Understanding Japanese Society, Joy Hendry takes the reader into the heart of Japanese life. Providing a clear and accessible introduction to Japanese ways of thinking, which does not require any previous knowledge of the country,...

Reconstructing Adult Masculinities Part-time Work in Contemporary Japan

Reconstructing Adult Masculinities: Part-time Work in Contemporary Japan

1st Edition

By Emma E. Cook
October 26, 2017

Over the past two decades, Japan’s socioeconomic environment has undergone considerable changes prompted by both a long recession and the relaxation of particular labour laws in the 1990s and 2000s. Within this context, "freeters", part-time workers aged between fifteen and thirty-four who are not ...

Japan's International Fisheries Policy Law, Diplomacy and Politics Governing Resource Security

Japan's International Fisheries Policy: Law, Diplomacy and Politics Governing Resource Security

1st Edition

By Roger D. Smith
August 09, 2017

Few nations rely upon the ocean as much as Japan for livelihood, culture and transport. The seas have long played a vital role for the Japanese, helping to support the economic and social life of a nation that possesses few resources and little arable land, and sustain a population that has nearly ...

Femininity, Self-harm and Eating Disorders in Japan Navigating contradiction in narrative and visual culture

Femininity, Self-harm and Eating Disorders in Japan: Navigating contradiction in narrative and visual culture

1st Edition

By Gitte Marianne Hansen
June 30, 2017

From the 1980s onwards, the incidence of eating disorders and self-harm has increased among Japanese women, who report receiving mixed messages about how to be women. Mirroring this, women’s self-directed violence has increasingly been thematised in diverse Japanese narrative and visual culture. ...

Ozawa Ichirō and Japanese Politics Old Versus New

Ozawa Ichirō and Japanese Politics: Old Versus New

1st Edition

By Aurelia George Mulgan
June 07, 2017

Ozawa Ichirō was the axis on which Japanese politics turned for more than two decades. He helped to reshape the electoral system, political funding rules, the evolution of the party system, the nature of executive government, the roles and powers of bureaucrats, and the conduct of parliamentary and...

Labour Market Deregulation in Japan and Italy Worker Protection under Neoliberal Globalisation

Labour Market Deregulation in Japan and Italy: Worker Protection under Neoliberal Globalisation

1st Edition

By Hiroaki Richard Watanabe
May 25, 2017

Japan and Italy encountered severe economic problems in the early 1990s, and the governments had to deal with those issues effectively under the increasing neoliberal pressures of globalisation. In this context, labour market deregulation was considered an effective tool to cope with those economic...

Neighborhood Associations and Local Governance in Japan

Neighborhood Associations and Local Governance in Japan

1st Edition

By Robert J. Pekkanen, Yutaka Tsujinaka, Hidehiro Yamamoto
May 25, 2017

Although local neighborhood associations are found in many countries, Japan’s are distinguished by their ubiquity, scope of activities, and very high participation rates, making them important for the study of society and politics. Most Japanese belong to one local neighborhood association or ...

The Organisational Dynamics of University Reform in Japan International Inside Out

The Organisational Dynamics of University Reform in Japan: International Inside Out

1st Edition

By Jeremy Breaden
May 24, 2017

For several decades internationalisation has been a cornerstone of both Japanese government higher education policy and approaches to reform at an institutional level, but Japan has still not managed to lose its reputation as a somewhat reclusive member of the global academic community. Consensus ...

Life Course, Happiness and Well-being in Japan

Life Course, Happiness and Well-being in Japan

1st Edition

Edited By Barbara Holthus, Wolfram Manzenreiter
April 20, 2017

Much of the existing literature on happiness in Japan has been produced in the field of economics and psychology and is quantitative in nature. Here, for the first time, a group of anthropologists and sociologists jointly analyze the state of happiness and unhappiness in Japan among varying social ...

Militarisation and Demilitarisation in Contemporary Japan

Militarisation and Demilitarisation in Contemporary Japan

1st Edition

By Glenn D. Hook
August 03, 2016

The intertwined issues of Japanese `identity' and `normality' are at the centre of the tension between internal and external pressures on Japanese defence and security policies. With chapters on peace thought, the militarisation and demilitarisation of language as well as the `hard' aspects of the ...

Configurations of Family in Contemporary Japan

Configurations of Family in Contemporary Japan

1st Edition

Edited By Tomoko Aoyama, Laura Dales, Romit Dasgupta
June 17, 2016

The middle-class nuclear family model has long dominated discourses on family in Japan. Yet there have always been multiple configurations of family and kinship, which, in the context of significant socio-economic and demographic shifts since the 1990s, have become increasingly visible in public ...

13-24 of 96
AJAX loader