Sokaiya are unique to Japanese corporate culture, but a canny Washington appears to have learned the lesson they provide. Sokaiya extort money from Japanese corporations through threats to disrupt shareholder meetings, spread malicious rumours and reveal corporate secrets. Some have even physically attacked company executives or their families. In his book on the issue, published 
SSR Blog
Monthly Archive
September | 2010
Japanese corporate culture and the US force buildup on Guam
By: Robert Karniol | Monday, September 27th, 2010Thailand’s Thaksin Shinawatra: his forgotten history
By: Robert Karniol | Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010Amid the bloodied detritus remaining after the Thai army moved in April and May to quell red-shirt protestors unsettling Bangkok, and with the aftermath still unfolding, it has been all but forgotten that this is not the first time that former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is accused of having plotted a government’s overthrow. Mr. Thaksin,
Fourth edition of SSR Monitor: Afghanistan discusses rule of law reform, traditional justice
By: Geoff Burt | Monday, September 20th, 2010The fourth edition of the Security Sector Reform Monitor: Afghanistan investigates efforts to enhance the rule of law, arguing that reforms been burdened by unrealistic expectations for the pace of institutional reform and public acceptance, questionable claims regarding the short-term efficacy of judicial reform as a stabilizing element in a counterinsurgency environment and reluctant or
CIGI publishes latest Afghanistan Paper: Bruce Riedel on “Obama’s War”
By: Geoff Burt | Wednesday, September 15th, 2010Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and former advisor to US Presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton, was appointed chair of President Barack Obama’s White House review to overhaul U.S. policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan in February 2009. His paper describes the strategy that President Obama has implemented to combat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and
SSR: Factoids versus Frameworks. Timor-Leste, Liberia and “Brownie.”
By: Edward Rees | Thursday, September 9th, 2010I was thinking caustic thoughts today. The SSR crowd really do sometimes get up my nose. Which I suppose means I get up my own nose once in a while. SSR policy wonks and practitioners alike are all full of energy and enthusiasm when it comes to assessments, reports, frameworks, stakeholder meetings and other such
Mexicans “Tweeting” for their Lives in Violent Cities
By: Kristin Bricker | Tuesday, September 7th, 2010In some northern Mexican cities, shootouts and dumped cadavers have been relatively common occurrences since President Felipe Calderón declared war on drug trafficking in late 2006. However, in mid-2009, drug war mayhem took a new twist: narco-blockades. In Monterrey and Reynosa, two northern cities notoriously replete with organized crime, drug traffickers began to organize blockades
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