A Paradigm Shift in Japan's Political Economy: From the Developmentalism to the Tourism based Country

Abstract

century. This process was interrupted by World War II. After the war, Japan reinstated developmentalism in order to restore its war-torn economy. Before the 1980s, Japan had reached the status of a fully industrialised nation. In terms of economic power Japan became on a par with Western industrialised nations. This success story was dubbed the “Japanese Miracle” (Johnson, 1982). The pursuit of economic development in Japan was often conducted at the ex-pense of other policy agendas, such as the protection of nature and environmental conservation. As a result, the country’s rapid economic expansion during the 1950s and 1960s was accompanied by an equally rapid deterioration of environmental con-ditions. Broadbent described the quandary of development versus environment as a “growth-environment dilemma” (Broadbent, 1998). That is, Japan’s conscious choice to adopt developmentalism had inevitably led to grave environmental consequences. Nevertheless, in the 1970s, the importance of protection of nature and the need for environmental conservation were increasingly recognised not only by Japan’s ruling elite, who had relentlessly pursued developmentalism, but also by the general public (Mori, 2003). During that time, environment-related issues emerged as an important social and policy agenda. This has been widely recognized as a paradigm shift in Ja-pan’s development practices and it seemed as if Japanese society was quickly learning from its mistakes. This study uses the concept of the ‘social learning’ process and looks at what had taken place in Japan during the crucial decades after World War II as well as ear-lier episodes prior to the war. It also examines the negative outcomes that the policy of developmentalism produced during the “Japanese Miracle” period of economic growth. More importantly, this paper analyses Japan’s socio-economic transformation from the old paradigm (developmentalism) to new paradigm (tourism-based country). This paper consists of six sections. Following the introduction, section two dis-cusses developmentalism and examines its main features. Section three analyses Ja-pan’s policymaking system and explores the reasons behind the serious environmental degradation that occurred in the country. Section four introduces the concept of social learning and seeks to identify the learning process in the course of development and environmental conservation in Japan. Section five examines Japan’s new political economy paradigm, the ‘Tourism-based country.’ The final section is the conclusion. Developmentalism and the ‘Japanese Miracle’ Developmentalism can be considered as a ‘development-first policy’ conducted at the expense of other national interests. It has been frequently observed that new states