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Article contents
The Policy Process and Social Policy in Japan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
Extract
Is Japan enigmatic because it is unique? Problems of social and economic policy in contemporary Japan challenge myths about uniqueness. By focusing on comparable problems, this essay notes the limits of world views about Japanese uniqueness and the exceptionalism of countries.
An aim is to unbundle areas that illustrate the policy process and reflect on models of policymaking. In the diversity within Japan, policy-making in specific areas reflects on the approaches of corporatism, pluralism, and state-centered theorists.
Across policy areas, instructors will discover problems of Japan's industrial society that are nonetheless comparable to elsewhere. Throughout East Asia, scholars note the distinct social, ideological, and historical contexts that challenge past social theory. A leading Asian country can offer rich additions to a course on comparative politics and public policy. In Japan, one also can emphasize familiar features of industrial society, economy, and polity that test various approaches and models of policymaking. Using areas of labor, welfare, agriculture, and education as examples, instructors may pursue these and additional topics found from the bibliographies and readings.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1992
References
Annotated Bibliography
Calder, E. Kent. 1988. Crisis and Compensation: Public Policy and Political Stability in Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press. This study addresses a range of policies and political processes in comparative perspective. Chapters present detailed considerations of political crisis in Japan, public spending patterns, determinants of policy change, and recent negotiations between Japan and the United States.Google Scholar
Inoguchi, Takashi and Okimoto, Daniel I., eds. 1988. The Political Economy of Japan: Volume 2, The Changing International Context. Stanford: Stanford University. While largely concerned with international relations, a few essays in the collection deal with domestic policymaking. Peter Katzenstein compares Japan with Switzerland, and addresses resemblances of democratic corporatism in a Japanese political economy that seeks market domination, looms large in the world order, and remains less inclusive of labor.Google Scholar
Krauss, Ellis and Ishida, Takeshi, eds. 1989. Democracy in Japan. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University. Shorter essays address the question of how Japan approaches the ideals of democracy. Particularly good for an introductory course, these essays range across economic and social problems of corporations, protest, and unions (by Christina Turner).Google Scholar
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13(2): 271–306. In a larger volume on the trade crisis, this influential article emphasizes changes in public policy that have occurred as economic openness affects the policy process in Japan.Google Scholar
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