本课程包含两组书面指定作业，一组是大学生的指定作业，一组是研究生的指定作业。

This course features two sets of paper assignments, one for undergraduate students and one for graduate students.

本课程是为高年级大学生与研究生简介当代日本的政治与政策。此学期分为两部分，在两星期概论日本与研究日本历史、政治与社会的主要研究途径之后，我们将开始探索日本政治的五个面向(译注：后文只有四个面向)：(1)政党政治，(2)选举政治，(3)利益团体政治，(4)官僚政治。此学期的第二个部分聚焦于公共政策，分为七项主要的政策领域：(1)社会政策，(2)外交政策，(3)国防政策(4)能源政策，(5)科学与科技政策，(6)产业政策，(7)外贸政策。我们将试着理解此学期第一部分中的政治行为者与制度，对跨越不同政策议题领域决策过程的影响。

This subject is designed for upper level undergraduates and graduate students as an introduction to politics and the policy process in modern Japan. The semester is divided into two parts. After a two-week general introduction to Japan and to the dominant approaches to the study of Japanese history, politics and society, we will begin exploring five aspects of Japanese politics: (1) Party Politics, (2) Electoral Politics, (3) Interest Group Politics, and (4) Bureaucratic Politics. The second part of the semester focuses on public policy, divided into seven major policy areas: (1) Social Policy, (2) Foreign Policy, (3) Defense Policy, (4) Energy Policy, (5) Science and Technology Policy, (6) Industrial Policy, and (7) Trade Policy. We will try to understand the ways in which the actors and institutions identified in the first part of the semester affect the policy process across a variety of issue areas.