29

This issue contains a comparative study of Italy and Japan drawn from symposia organized by French, Japanese, and Italian researchers. Political scientists have used this approach before, but had always focused on the specificities of the two countries and the features of their political systems that were considered illustrative of their deep differences. In opposition to this seemingly unsatisfactory process, three objectives were set: to outline similarities in the histories of the two countries, to highlight certain aspects of their political systems, and to analyze their latest developments. This led to a different approach to the fundamental political realities of corruption, clientelism, and party government, and a challenging of the relevance of the new concept of “regulated redistributive partitocracy.”