No abstract

Few democratic countries have lower rates of female political representation than Japan, making it an excellent place to seek clues for female underrepresentation. We were surprised to find, based on three experimental surveys, that Japanese voters do not harbor particularly negative attitudes toward female politicians. The problem instead appears to be that women are reluctant to run for office because of socially mandated family roles. An implication of our study is that gender equality in political representation will likely founder in countries with electoral systems that require around-the-clock constituency service and legislative work, at least until citizens no longer have gendered expectations about time-consuming family obligations.

s Building Resilience: Social Capital in Post-Disaster Recovery (University of Chicago Press, 2012) is a major addition to the study of how societies recover in the wake of natural disasters. In this book, Aldrich challenges conventional claims that successful reconstruction from natural disasters is about the quality of governance, sufficient funding, extent of physical damage, or levels of human capital. Instead, he points to social capital as a crucial determinant of a society's post-disaster recovery over the medium to longer term. The book also raises important issues as to how we might think about the independence of observations in the wake of disaster, the concepts of bridging and social capital, how to fruitfully integrate societal-based accounts of post-disaster with state-based accounts, and about moving toward more systematic comparisons not only within but also across different disasters.

This article develops and tests a general framework for explaining variations in the extent of postwar reconstruction. Existing studies point to the importance of economic resources and a coherent state apparatus in promoting effective reconstruction. This study argues that because reconstruction inherently requires coordination between numerous societal actors as well as between state and society, a full explanation for the extent of reconstruction must examine the linkages among those actors, especially civil society. By generating greater amounts of information, a more vibrant civil society leads to (a) better identification of needs, (b) more efficient implementation, and (c) more effective monitoring. Statistical analyses of newly assembled data from 46 Japanese prefectures lend support to the propositions advanced in the article.

Few democratic countries have lower rates of female political representation than Japan, making it an excellent place to seek clues for female underrepresentation. We were surprised to find, based on three experimental surveys, that Japanese voters do not harbor particularly negative attitudes toward female politicians. The problem instead appears to be that women are reluctant to run for office because of socially mandated family roles. An implication of our study is that gender equality in political representation will likely founder in countries with electoral systems that require around-the-clock constituency The authors are shown in alphabetical order. We would like to thank