Authority without Power Law and the Japanese Paradox [Paperback]

This book offers a comprehensive interpretive study of the role of law in contemporary Japan. Haley argues that the weakness of legal controls throughout Japanese history has assured the development and strength of informal community controls based on custom and consensus to maintain order--an order characterized by remarkable stability, with an equally significant degree of autonomy for individuals, communities, and businesses. Haley concludes by showing how Japan's weak legal system has reinforced preexisting patterns of extralegal social control, thus explaining many of the fundamental paradoxes of political and social life in contemporary Japan.

Haley, drawing on a range of secondary literature, offers a lengthy, historically rich examination of the development of Japanese law. --Comparative Politics

Fascinating....Contain[s] many insights concerning law and social control in Japan. --The Law and Politics Book Review

Authority Without Poweris a major contribution to the field of Japanese law. The author not only establishes a bold and sweeping framework for a better understanding of Japanese law and legal history but also presents many stimulating, original interpretations. The extensive notes and bibliography are valuable for scholars. By analyzing law as an index to society, the author has succeeded in making the study of Japanese law in the United States, which has been the domain of a small circle of specialists, more appealing to a wider audience of both scholars and general readers. --The Journal ofAsian Studies

Haley excels at history. He carefully traces Japan's selective adaptation of Chinese thought, and insightfully reveals how the hamlet, ormura, was the paradigm of Tokugawa governance....Haley's explanation of the historical and continuing paradox of Japanese law is well balanced. --Far EasternEconomic Review

Professor Halel#%