This book analyzes the political economy of reproduction and its role in the process of Japanese modernization. Hiroko analyzes state attempts and policies to intervene into women's bodies and everyday lives to integrate them into the Japanese political economy. Based on Foucault's concept of governmentality the author develops a model to assess reproduction in three forms - economic, biological and socio-political - from 1868 until the present day.

Analysing Japan's international relations and participation in the multilateral forum - the G8 - since its creation in 1975, this text explores the motivation of the Japanese government and non-governmental actors' aims and objectives, and examines how and to what extent they have been achieved.

This book extends the analysis of governance in contemporary Japan by exploring both the sites and issues of governance above and below the state as well as within it.