| Abstrakt: |
This article studies policing in Japan. Even in an ever more closely integrating Europe, Western scholars and practitioners of policing, with few rare exceptions, still have a tendency not to look much farther than their own national borders and when they do so, they must generally confront and attempt to overcome the impediments of meaningful access, cultural literacy, ethnocentric bias and, importantly, language. Though reunification with capitalist South Korea in the next century may eventually prise open windows of opportunity for would-be comparative researchers, North Korea remains for the time being secretive and largely impenetrable to outside observers. Notwithstanding the economic crises affecting the region in late 1997 and throughout 1998, it is generally agreed that the twenty-first century is still set to see an ascendant East Asia with Japan, along with a revitalized China, occupying pivotal positions in the affairs and attentions of the post-millennial world. It is therefore a timely point at which to reflect upon policing arrangements in Japan, which, in many ways, cast the capitalist developmental template which some in the region have already followed and which others are now emulating. |
