Book excerpt: This volume analyses the way in which the Japanese civil service has contributed to Japan's phenomenally successful economic growth and the lessons that experience may offer for other developing countries. It provides much new information about the structures, functioning, and policymakingactivities of the Japanese civil service. In its analysis, emphasises the degree of competitiveness within the Japanese bureaucracy, the extent to which political authority is wielded rather than formal power, and the way in which government policy has encouraged rather that inhibited marketforces.