Lechevalier, Sébastien: The great transformation of Japanese capitalism

Abstract

The book covers the manyfold, albeit gradual, institutional changes of the Japanese political economy since the 1980s. Sebastian Lechevalier, an associate professor of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, is the editor and is in fact also the author of most parts of the book: Only one chapter is written by someone else, Yves Tiberghien, with an overview over 30 years of so-called neoliberal reforms in Japan, and another one by Lechevalier and Arnaud Nanta on the Japanese education system. In addition, there is an extended foreword by Robert Boyer, who may be seen as the doyen of the French regulationist school; he offers his own interpretation of the recent institutional changes in Japan, with some nuances compared to the main text. Sebastian Lechevalier himself can be considered a leading younger French voice on the Japanese political economy. One of the book’s intentions is to provide a non-technical introduction to 15 years of his research, so the book offers a valuable introduction to recent French political economic scholarship and thinking on Japan, quoting important other authors along the way. It was originally written in French and published in 2011, while the 2014 English language edition was translated by J. A. A. Stockwin, a renowned specialist on Japanese politics. Actually, at least in parts of the book, events and issues emerging after 2011 are also discussed, particularly the December 2012 election of Shinzo Abe from the Liberal-Democratic Party as prime minister, and the early months of his unconventional economic policy proposition (“Abenomics”). In his introductory chapter, Lechevalier explains his research interest and methodological perspective: During the heyday of Japan’s economic prowess, the 1980s, the dominant position on studying different economic systems was to recognize the